KAP Leader and Traeger MP Robbie Katter has slammed APA as a greedy company with a fossil-fuel energy monopoly in North West Queensland.
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Mr Katter's comments come after APA attacked the proposed Copperstring high-voltage transmission line project as a "40 year electricity tax on mums and dads".
The attack comes in APA's submission to the Queensland government's consultation on electricity supply options for the North West Minerals Province but Copperstring hit back in their submission saying users would save 40pc on current APA prices.
Now Mr Katter has waded in saying APA had a stranglehold on the local energy market that was crippling economic expansion.
"APA are a greedy corporation whose only intention by slagging off at the CopperString project is to protect their $90 million a year, unregulated monopoly," Mr Katter said.
"The APA-run monopoly in the North West is so dysfunctional they require ACCC exemptions from competition law just to operate and they can't even keep the lights on.
"By trying to block the grid connections they are not only denying Queensland expansion of critical minerals production, they are blocking the development of more than 2,000MW of renewables across the Mount Isa to Townsville corridor."
He said APA customers in the North West currently paying more than $200MW-hour for electricity, have since publicly lashed the monopoly power supply.
A customer told the Australian Financial Review it "had to buy the natural gas for APA to convert into their electricity", and agree to "onerous terms that force them to, for example, keep paying for power even during their regulator stoppages for maintenance work".
"They are the one provider: if you want to consume power in the Mount Isa region, you have to come with hat in hand to them and they effectively set the terms," the anonymous customer told the AFR.
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Mr Katter said all the North West wanted was to be connected to the same energy market that was afforded to the majority of Australia.
He said Copperstring 2.0, the project to connect the North West Mineral Province to the National Electricity Market via a 1100km transmission line, has the support of all major stakeholders in North Queensland.and would unlock $720 billion worth of mineral extraction in the form of zinc, copper, gold, lead, cobalt, vanadium and phosphate.
The Queensland State Government entered into an implementation agreement with the proponent of CopperString in October 2020, underwriting some of the initial investment costs, including the Environmental Impact Assessment while the federal government pledged $11 million "to help progress the project to the Final Investment Decision" stage.
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Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
