CopperString: Members Rallied in Townsville Over Funding Cuts and Privatisation Fears
ETU members rallied in Townsville, escalating a campaign over the future of the CopperString transmission project after the State Budget was released.
CopperString funding has collapsed, from a total project cost of $13.9 billion under the LNP’s own figures last year to $1.172 billion now, with nothing allocated beyond 2026. On those numbers, the government has two options: cut the project or open it to private investors.
Underneath the funding question sits the bigger issue: who controls the asset. CopperString was meant to be built, owned and run by Powerlink as public infrastructure. Under the government’s Energy Roadmap, that shifts to a QIC-managed entity from around mid-2026. The ETU QLD & NT, alongside The Services Union and Professionals Australia, has written repeatedly to the Treasurer and to QIC seeking a briefing on the ownership model and workforce protections through the handover. None of those letters has produced a response.
State Secretary Peter Ong said, “We know this LNP government has Privatisation in its DNA, they need to come out and explain to the Queensland Taxpayers, who have already paid hundreds of millions to build CopperString, whether the project will be cut or privatised.”
CopperString represents one of the most significant structural transitions in Queensland’s publicly owned energy infrastructure in decades. The decisions made now will shape who owns and controls the network for generations to come. North Queensland rallied to keep Queensland’s future in Queensland’s hands, and we can expect this to only be the start of a long campaign fighting against Privatisation and this LNP Government.
ETU Youth Crew Raising Money for MATES
The ETU youth crew members have done some great work in the industry and community. They achieved the highest amount of donations nationally for the Mates in Construction big lap, raising $12,097. This year they did group activities in each region, where we hold ETU Youth Crews. It was great to see a good show of support from our members in the community turning up and getting involved with youth crew’s events.
The youth crew has also played part in the BTG touch footy carnival, being one of 6 ETU teams that participated to help raise crucial funds for Mates in Construction. Along with the teams from the CFMEU and the PPTEU we collectively raised over $125,000. The touch footy carnival is great event that helps give back to the community!
Queensland Rail update
At the beginning of April this year, over Easter, ETU members at Queensland Rail began a protected action campaign after negotiations stalled due to the current LNP government and QR not honouring the commitment they gave during the 2023 round of negotiations, via an exchange of letters, to create an Electrical EA. This was despite the ETU being willing to accept the government’s poor, sub-inflation wages policy.
This resulted in three separate attempts by QR/LNP to have our protected industrial action suspended by the FWC, each filed under a different section of the Fair Work Act: s424 in April, which we won; s426 in April, which we lost; and s425 in May, which we won. Following the loss of the s426 application and the resulting four-day suspension order, we entered into a near eight-week intensive s240 bargaining dispute process with the assistance of Deputy President Lake.
For the ETU, this process proved to be a fruitful endeavour. That was down to the reasonable way we had mitigated our Log of Claims from the outset, including accepting a poor wages policy and choosing instead to press matters the government wasn’t steadfast on; the measured, slow escalation of our protected industrial action; and the concessions we gave on specific projects, notably supporting the on-time running of services over ANZAC Day. None of this would have been possible without the discipline and resolve of our membership at QR.
Midway through May, QR made its third and final application to suspend our protected industrial action, this time presided over by Deputy President Butler, who dismissed it, citing the measured and slow nature of our escalation as making the application premature. The deadlock was ultimately broken through a recommendation issued by DP Lake, which had two parts: that QR issue a Notice of Employee Representational Rights (NERR) and begin negotiating an Electrical EA, and that the ETU lift all protected industrial action to allow QR to focus on that process. Within the week, QR had issued the NERR, and negotiations for an Electrical EA are now continuing.
This will be the first time a rail operator in Australia has an Electrical EA. It’s a landmark achievement for our members at QR, the fruit of over a decade of hard work, and it paves the way for ETU members in other states to push for electrical-only agreements at the operators they work for. Our members have triumphed in the face of a hostile state government and, by extension, employer, showing the power we hold and can exercise through solidarity to improve our workplaces.
In total, our members undertook 71 days of protected action, 22 of them under a s471 notice, putting members in the position of forgoing pay in order to participate in action. These s471 notices, along with the large volume of suspension applications, all submitted on Friday nights, are tactics we now know to expect in future disputes.