Roche told an Australian Pipeline Industry Association dinner in Brisbane this week that the LNP was seen by many in the community as being so pro-resources that some of the

party’s reforms were incorrectly characterised as “special deals” for the resources sector, “when in fact in some instances we were not happy with the proposals”.

A case in point, he said, was the package of Water Act amendments in late 2014.

“Labor will be surprised when they get our briefing on that legislation and find that we will lose no sleep at all if the amendments are never proclaimed,” Roche said.

Regarding the royalty hike in the LNP’s first budget, Roche said “we told them that the sector was at the beginning of a major price downturn but they would not listen”.

“We also made no secret of the fact that we were not fans of the Regional Planning initiatives of the LNP,” Roche said.

“We saw that legislation as loading up our sector with yet another layer of approvals for no tangible community benefit.

“Right now, some of our members see their business futures as being very much up in the air – examples being a proposed renewed ban on uranium mining and an accelerated end to sand mining on North Stradbroke Island.”

And while there has been much media speculation that Labor may be bad news for opening up the Galilee coal basin or for the New Acland coal mine life extension project, Roche said he was confident that industry can achieve “positive outcomes” on both these issues.

Roche also flagged underlying industry concern around the lack of political certainty and continuity in Australia, citing first term governments in Victoria and Queensland defeated and a federal government “seemingly doing its best to also be a one-term government”.

“The feedback from my members with head offices offshore is that those head offices are increasingly wary of investing in Australia given the heightened political uncertainty and lack of government continuity,” Roche said.

“The brains trust in the new [Queensland] Labor government are alive to these issues and are going out of their way to point to the ‘open for business’ signs outside the Executive Building. “

While Roche pointed out new Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk had three quarters of her cabinet at a forum with industry leaders the day after the swearing in of the new ministry this week, he warned that the Galilee coal basin issues needed to be seriously addressed.

He was cautiously upbeat that the new Labor government has said it supports the development of the Galilee.

Several of the Basin’s projects began their journey through the approvals process under the previous Labor government.

Former Labor Premier Anna Bligh opened Adani’s offices in Brisbane and her government sold a 99-year lease to the T1 terminal at Abbot Point to Adani.

And while confusion reigns over whether the Abbot Point coal terminal expansion can go ahead under the new Labor government, Roche said getting the necessary dredging done this year would also be an “important signal” to the financial community over the state’s investment perception around its resources sector.

He said QRC would brief the Labor government on the proposed arrangements to provide some financial backing for the development of the multi-user standard gauge rail line to the Galilee Basin.

Roche’s speech on this issue, however, was made just before Palaszczuk announced it would withdraw funding for Adani’s proposed rail link to Abbot Point, and also scuttled a plan to deposit dredge sediment on the Caley Valley Wetlands.

“No taxpayer money was involved and I hope the new government will see the good sense in providing backing to the rail project as a tangible signal to the mine-rail-port project’s potential lenders,” Roche said on February 19.

“Let there be no doubt that this rail line – apart from opening up the new coal basin – is significant as it sees a major new player in the rail infrastructure market in Queensland,” he said.

“I doubt such competition would be welcomed by incumbent provider Aurizon.

“Perhaps that goes some way to explaining Aurizon’s comments earlier this week that their own rail and port project for the Galilee Basin would not commence until ‘the back-end of the decade when thermal coal prices recover’

“It does not seem to me that other players in the Galilee are intending to wait that long.”