North Queensland First leader and Whitsunday MP Jason Costigan wants Queensland to lift the ban on uranium mining.
Speaking in Townsville alongside his new NQF candidate Clynton Hawks Mr Costigan said the Palaszczuk government needed to resume mining to revive the fortunes of regional north Queensland.
"After inspecting what's left at Mary Kathleen last year, I came to the conclusion we should go back to the future and mine uranium in Queensland again exporting it to the world, creating jobs and economic development," Mr Costigan said.
Uranium mining is legal in South Australia and NT but was banned in Queensland in 1989 by the Labor government, then repealed by the LNP Newman government in 2012, and then banned again in 2015 by the Palaszczuk government.
Mr Costigan said the resumption would lead to export opportunities at Karumba.
Bob Katter also supported a nuclear power push earlier this year.
The most famous site in the region is Mary Kathleen which was commissioned in the 1950s and one of the largest producers of uranium as yellowcake and sales supplied material primarily intended for USA and UK weapons programs and some electricity production until its contracts ran out.
The development of civil nuclear power stimulated a second wave of exploration activity in the late 1960s and its second production phase was 1976 to the end of 1982.
Today the largest prospective Queensland mine is Paladin's Valhalla, 40 km north of Mount Isa, with an estimated 8Mlbpa idled capacity.
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.
