The beachy bloke sees things as conspiracy's out to get him.

This bloke is a Consultant to Green Square(who ever they are) with Henry Ergas one of NEWS LTD trained economic seals along with Sloan, funny how he never said a word about Qld direction under the now discredited Newman/Courier mail dictatorship.
Just another Right wing whinger

The fact that some exploration may have ruled out wreck island only proves there's probably no oil near wreck island; other folk were prepared to spend their own money if only they could obtain an exploration licence And it's been widely reported we may have around 5 billion barrels of sweet light crude in the townville trench and lots more just a little further out.

Just because the article and the expert commentary claiming we may have a resource to rival the Middle East appeared in the mid seventies in an industry publication doesn't prove very much except I may have a very reliable memory and I read the article; and the information has yet to appear online?

Typically the greens will latch onto any excuse or character assassination to put a stop to any and all reef exploration!

We should just crack on and develop the oil we're sure is in the townsville trough and use the revenue earned to explore the rest of the reef more thoroughly!

[The "Green" promised tourists are staying away in drives while many operators go to the wall or are being killed by the cost of fuel!]

And given we're talking about a largely unexplored area the size of Victoria, the possibilities given the sheer number of mystery oil slicks, are astronomical!

This is not 1928 and we have far more accurate instruments and exploration methods in the kit bag today!

Well past Time we stopped listening to the obstructionist greens and started to look if only to know the size of the resource we may being asked to lock away forever all while we import vastly dirty more pollution transport fuel.

The last time I looked we'd lost around 95% of our manufacturing base to the rest of the world!

And due no doubt in my mind to the obstructionist activity to completely implacable green, who are no better than graffiti vandals claiming ownership of public space.
Rhrosty.

IMF austerity programs are designed to weaken economies to the point when valuable businesses, state-owned infrastructure, and potentially valuable real-estate can be taken over, wages lowered, and the one percent who own ninety-nine percent of the planet's riches can rest secure in their ill-gotten wealth.
We have a government that wants to govern for all Queenslanders, not just the wealthy few like the Newman gang. Quality of life rests on more than the fluctuations of the stock market and company profits. The myth of trickle down economics was exploded years ago. With laissez fair capitalism, the money always trickles up to the wealthy, creating, as it is doing, an increasing class of poor people. Encourage people to save by making saving profitable, then debts can be whittled down. Mr Branigan's stint with the competition authority has perhaps blinded him to the fact that not everyone has the ability to compete, and competing for the lowest price, instead of the best product is not healthy or sensible.