Capricorn Coast business owner Grantley Jack has given the Crisafulli Government a pass mark but says it must do more on coal royalties, regional investment and trade apprenticeships.

The Crisafulli Government must invest more in regional Queensland and strengthen support for traditional trade apprenticeships, according to the electrical contractor.

Mr Jack (pictured left), a director of electrical contracting and maintenance company NRG Industrial, gave both the government and Natural Resources and Mines Minister Dale Last a score of 6.5 out of 10 for their performance over the last 18 months.

Main image: Aerial view of Rockhampton

He is the second regional leader to contribute to iQ Industry Queensland’s scorecard series assessing the LNP Government’s performance during its first 18 months in office.

Mr Jack said mine service work accounted for about 75 per cent of NRG Industrial’s business four years ago but had since fallen to less than half of its activity.

Related: Thumbs down to state’s performance in mining regions

He said the government had not addressed the coal royalty regime introduced by the former Labor government, despite the importance of coal mining to both the Central Queensland and state economies.

Negative perceptions surrounding coal were also making it harder for businesses connected to coal mining to attract investment, he said.

“I had a situation where a company was looking to buy me and they were going to get the money through the ANZ and the ANZ knocked it back because it was a coal entity. So those sorts of things do go on, and it’s real,” he said.

“I think they (the State Government) are doing a good job, but I think they really need to look at the royalties and they really need – I’ll say it a hundred thousand times – to look at how much money they’re investing in the regions.

“Notwithstanding the fact that we have the Olympic spend coming into the south-east corner, and they’ve got a lot of work to do to get the hearts and minds of the people in the bush.”

Mr Jack said the government and Mr Last could also do more to encourage small businesses to employ apprentices in traditional trades.

“There’s no incentive for me to put an apprentice on, especially in the stronger trades like fitters, mechanical, electrical.

“And I don’t want to sound nasty to the bakers and the others out there, but if you want to be a baker, they will incentivise, but they won’t incentivise the traditional trades, and that’s why we have a lack of tradespeople out there.

“I’d be one of the largest employers of apprentices in the state from a small business perspective. But the only reason I’m doing that is to try and keep those people attracted and retain them and make sure that we can still have a decent trade base.”