The federal government says it has made the “first milestone payment” of a $3.6m grant to Shine Energy, the inexperienced company proposing a coal-fired power station at Collinsville in north Queensland.
The Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources confirmed to Guardian Australia that Shine had now received a chunk of the grant, despite warnings by environmental groups that any payment prior to a disallowance vote in federal parliament could be “improper”.
Labor and the Greens will seek to block the grant and both have called for separate investigations into the process.
The Guardian has previously revealed that Shine was asked to apply for the grant two days after it was announced as the recipient to fanfare among pro-coal Nationals in north and central Queensland.
The Guardian has also obtained a copy of the grant guidelines which were written specifically for Shine Energy to apply.
The document justifies the unusual ad-hoc process – for which there was no competitive tender – on the basis that the grant “is specifically dependent on expertise only available in the targeted areas [north and central Queensland]”.
Shine Energy has no experience completing any energy project or feasibility study. The company is notionally based in Brisbane, though it has no physical presence at the address listed as its head office.
Its Brisbane-based chief executive, Ashley Dodd, is a Birriah traditional owner.
The grant guidelines state there is an “urgent need” to provide services to address the supply and affordability of electricity to customers in north and central Queensland. The document said the feasibility study should be completed by June 2021.
However, when the grant details were published earlier this month, Shine was given until March 2023 – an additional 21 months – to complete the work.
The department said in a statement that allowances had been made for the provision of additional reports and financial statements.
Energy sector experts, the Queensland government, the Queensland LNP and others dispute there is any shortage of power in north and central Queensland.
The Australian Energy Market Operator has said there is an “energy surplus”.
Labor’s shadow minister for climate change and energy, Mark Butler, said handing money to Shine for the feasibility study “knowing full well Labor would be lodging a disallowance motion” was “just another reminder of how incompetent [energy minister Angus Taylor] is.”
“Angus Taylor has no problem putting taxpayer money at risk to fund his new coal-fired power obsession,” Butler said.
The Greens senator, Larissa Waters, said the grant to Shine had been “a corrupt process from start to finish”.
She said the Greens would move to establish a Senate references inquiry into the Shine grant and “the litany of other taxpayer grants used as pre-election slush funds to sure up the government’s fortunes in the last election”.
“First the government picked an inexperienced winner and then crafted the guidelines to justify their decision, and now they have dished out the money before the Senate has even finished deciding whether they can.”
A spokesman for Taylor said: “We reject those assertions.”
“Labor’s attempt to disallow this project is yet another attack on jobs in Queensland by an increasingly divided party.”
The department said it “undertook due diligence processes to ensure Shine Energy was eligible to receive a grant, with all supporting documentation assessed in accordance with the commonwealth grant and rules guidelines.”
