Government spin cannot hide a lacklustre Collie Basin Consolidation Taskforce report

The Shadow Minister for Energy Dr Steve Thomas says the Labor Government’s half-hearted response to the lacklustre Collie Basin Consolidation report released today is of no comfort to the Collie community or the families and business who consume energy throughout Western Australia.

“This is another embarrassment for a Government that has a failing energy transition and a floundering Collie economic transition” Dr Thomas said.

“Adding another $60 million in side funding to an already floundering Collie transition that has had little impact on the Collie economy is the Government’s attempt to hide the failure of the energy transition, the failure of the Collie economic transition and the lack of substance in the report.

“The report of the Taskforce has made not one single recommendation to the Government, but has simply compiled an outline of the history of the coalfields and the problems that they are in.

“The word “recommendation” does not appear once in the report.

“There was only one task the Government gave the taskforce, which was to “consider the future structure of coal mining assets in the Collie Basin”, and while the Government might argue that an outline of the history of the basin and a list of the problems it faces constitutes “consideration” the lack of any recommendation on how the administration should look is another energy failure.

“I could have written that report for them at a fraction of the cost.

Dr Thomas said the report outlined three options for the management of the coalfields in Collie – no integration, operational integration, and single entity or full integration - and identified the problems with each without providing any solutions or final recommendations.

“We have been talking about the advantages of fully integrating the coal companies at Collie for more than fifteen years, and this report gets us no further” Dr Thomas said.

“The real problem is that both companies were sold to overseas entities, and the debt holders and bond holders are a major obstacle to overcome.

“It will probably cost the State Government hundreds of millions of taxpayer’s dollars to get them out, which is something the report lightly brushes over on page 27.

“The Government should have identified the costs associated with any change of ownership and administration of the coal companies in real dollar terms.

“That cost is enough to explain why the report today tells us nothing new and the Government has resorted to another smoke and mirrors minor announcement in Collie.