Finishing off a big year of looking at large, controversial coal projects, we reviewed the economic assessment of the Galilee/China First project on behalf of the landholders of the Bimblebox Nature Refuge in central Queensland.  The assessment is couched in positive terms, but none of its key findings are unambiguous – impacts on labour demand and exchange rates will lead to losses in competing industries, especially manufacturing and agriculture.  A claim in the executive summary of the EIS that the project will create 70,000 jobs is an error based on complete misinterpretation of the economic assessment.

The economic assessment contains no cost benefit analysis, leaving decision makers with no idea if it will have a net benefit for Queensland or Australia.  Read our review here:  Ecolarge Dec 2011 China First submission FINAL.0