State Agriculture Minister Mark Furner has been grilled over the closure of Queensland Agricultural Training Colleges during a parliamentary estimates hearing.
The QATC organisation, which included pastoral colleges in Longreach and Emerald, will be shut down by the end of this year following a review by Professor Peter Coaldrake.
Mr Furner said the government had done everything it could to sustain the viability of QATC, including spending more than half a million dollars over two years on marketing efforts to attract more students.
"The decision made by the Palaszczuk government was not taken lightly as it impacts QATC operations across the state," Mr Furner said.
"That is why 12 months notice was given: to provide staff, students and those communities with time to transition into a new future."
Between 2016 and 2018 student numbers at the Emerald pastoral college dropped from 85 to 48, while student numbers at Longreach dropped from 37 to 25, Mr Furner said.
"Both campuses have the capacity to accommodate over 150 students, but declining residential student enrolments have significantly contributed to QATC reporting an operating a loss of $5.4 million for 2017-18," Mr Furner said.
"In 2018, as an example, QATC undertook an extensive marketing campaign with a view to increasing student enrolments from the 2019 intake."
This marketing campaign had spent a total of $610,276 across two financial years, Mr Furner added.
LNP agricultural spokesman Tony Perrett also asked Mr Furner whether he was aware of a $1760 donation made by Professor Coaldrake to the Queensland Labor Party.
"Is the minister aware that Peter Coaldrake made a personal donation of $1760 to the Queensland Labor Party two weeks before delivering his final report on the agricultural colleges," Mr Perrett asked.
Mr Furner said he was not aware of the donation.
"In answer to the member's first part of the question with respect to Mr Peter Coaldrake, I am certainly not familiar with that being the case," he said.
Professor Coaldrake is a former Vice Chancellor of the Queensland University of Technology, and led the Public Sector Management Commission under former Labor Premier Wayne Goss during the 1990s.
