The Guardian reports (16.1.15) on a paper by the Australia Institute which claims that ‘Queensland taxpayers have subsidised the Abbot Point coal port expansion to the tune of almost $2bn with it expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars more, according to a paper released by an independent policy thinktank.
‘While the environmental risks of the Abbot Point port expansion have been widely reported, the economic impacts have been overlooked, according to the Australia Institute.
‘The thinktank found Queensland taxpayers had contributed $1,947.1m to the project despite no public cost-benefit analysis of the project being done.’