Queensland once led the nation with the Queensland Energy and Jobs Plan — the most ambitious and progressive clean-energy policy in Australia. It set out a clear pathway toward cheaper power, modern infrastructure, and a future-focused economy built on renewables, storage, and Queensland-owned energy assets.

But the new LNP Government has abruptly abandoned that vision. Their Energy Roadmap walks Queensland backwards — away from clean, reliable and affordable energy, and back toward a system dominated by ageing coal units, expanded gas dependence, and reduced certainty about our long-term energy future. Instead of embracing the modern energy economy, the LNP has chosen an approach driven by outdated ideology, locking Queenslanders into an energy system that is dirtier, riskier, and less inspiring than the forward-looking plan we had.

At the same time, the LNP is opening the door to greater private control over Queensland’s energy future. Under their roadmap, private investors — not Queenslanders — will increasingly shape the decisions that determine how much we pay for electricity and what our energy system looks like in the decades ahead.

The most revealing part of the new Energy Roadmap is its own admission: the LNP says ambitious government-led programs are “undeliverable,” and that they cannot manage large-scale projects that Queensland needs. Instead of developing the capability to deliver for the state, the LNP would rather hand responsibility — and profit opportunities — to private corporations. Where Labor sees public leadership as a strength, the LNP sees it as a burden.

Labor’s focus is firmly on the future: clean energy, secure jobs, public ownership, and a modern system designed to keep bills low over the long term. The LNP’s focus is on the past: extending coal, expanding gas, outsourcing responsibility, and slowing the transition Queensland needs.

Queenslanders deserve an energy plan that moves us forward. Labor is ready to deliver it.