Which is where the Newman government's Strong Choices campaign comes into play. The money spent on the Galilee Basin will come from the $8.6 billion pool its asset lease (sales) plan will raise. Mr Seeney said he expected that would come to "hundreds of millions" instead of billions, but would not say whether that estimate was only for the rail line, needed to move the coal from the basin to the port, or the government's entire planned investment. "The decision we have already taken is [that] some of the money that will become available to us [through asset sales] is best spent ensuring that 27,000 jobs are available to Queenslanders into the future," he said. "The starting point is the state is looking to take a minority stake. We don't want to be more involved than we have to be. "We want to enable the infrastructure to be built and we want to be owners of the infrastructure for as short a period of time as possible. "So we see our role, as the state government, to make sure this infrastructure is provided - sooner, rather than later - and for us than to move the ownership back to the private sector, just as we have done in the Bowen Basin over a long period of time."

Who benefits GVK-Hancock, Clive Palmer's Waratah Coal and Adani all have mining interests in the region - the Indian-based Adani being the most significant as the owner of the $15 billion Carmichael mine set to be the biggest coalmine in the nation. But securing finance has been difficult for the mines, which suffer from size and location issues. After meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Premier Campbell Newman and Mr Seeney were pleased to announce they believed they had solved that particular problem. Reportedly, the finance market has begun to respond, with Adani believed to have secured $1 billion in funding on the back of the announcement. The Newman government has been counting on the Galilee projects beginning construction next year to help offset the job losses as the gas industry moves from construction to production. G20

But it came as the most powerful leaders in the world pledged to do more to move away from fossil fuels. Climate change hijacked the G20 agenda, which the Australian government had intended to focus on tax reform and profit shifting. But Mr Seeney said coal would have an important role to play in securing the world's energy needs for decades into the future and he believed it was better the coal came from Australia - known for its higher-quality coal due to the lower sulphur levels, than elsewhere. "Everybody that has even any sort of knowledge of the energy requirements around the world recognises that coal will play a major role in producing the world's energy requirements for many, many years to come," he said. "The advantage that Australia has is our coal is high quality and we can produce that coal in an environmentally sensitive and sound way. Using Australian coal to produce the world's energy requirements makes much more sense than using lower-quality coal from other places where it is not produced to the same environmental standards." For Prime Minister Modi, the Queensland government commitment helps him keep his domestic political promises. Elected on a vow to help lift more than 400 million people out of poverty, he faces access to electricity as one of the first steps.

What now? Mr Seeney's office will be sending letters to each of the mining interests - including Mr Palmer - this week. "The negotiations that we will be having with all of the proponents is what is their particular infrastructure challenge and how could we assist with that by becoming a minority shareholder, or owning a small part of it," he said. "And it can be either or. It can be either a minority equity holding in a particular company that owns and operates a piece of infrastructure, or it can be something that the state provides, that we own 100 per cent, but is a small part of the total infrastructure challenge." Reaction

But the announcement, first made on Sunday but mostly lost in the G20 hubbub, has drawn instant criticism from green groups and some economists. Director of Energy Resource Studies Australasia at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, Tim Buckley, said it was a financially irresponsible decision, and labelled the Galilee Basin projects "unviable". "Many would consider this a government simply pissing taxpayers' money up against the wall," he said in a statement. "The people of Queensland and Australia should be outraged at this idea of questionable politicians spending many billions of taxpayer dollars to make an unviable, unwanted and dangerous mega coal project a reality. "The Galilee coal projects are totally commercially unviable. Any project undertaken is highly likely to end up as a stranded fossil fuel asset as the rest of the world rapidly transitions to lower-carbon solutions. Coal has entered structural decline – there is no two ways about that fact."

Queensland Greens Senator Larissa Waters labelled it a bad decision, for both the environment and economy. "Not only is this environmentally disastrous, it's economically insane, especially when you're spending the state's public wealth," she said. The Lock the Gate Alliance said it was another black mark against the government. "Nobody but Campbell Newman, Jeff Seeney and a couple of Indian billionaires wants this coal mined," campaign co-ordinator Kate Dennehy said. "It's dirty, it's expensive and will come at the cost of enormous quantities of ground and river water than Queensland can hardly afford to sacrifice."

The government hopes preliminary work can begin in the region next year.