Federal Labor opposes Adani mine, again
JUNE 20, 2016: THOUGH they don’t have the gumption to show their true colours in Central and North Queensland, Labor are loud and clear on their opposition to Adani’s Carmichael Coal Project in inner city Melbourne.Labor’s shadow environment minister Mark Butler is the latest Labor politician to go on the record stating his opposition to the massive job-creating project.Mark Butler’s exact words at a forum in Melbourne were: ‘I don’t think the Adani coal mine is a realistic prospect. I don’t understand, and I’ve said this publicly, why the Queensland Government issued the licence that it issued earlier this year…’Butler also said: ‘The state of the thermal coal market is in a steep structural decline’.Butler’s statements are the latest in a long line of anti-Carmichael coal sentiments from everyone from the Opposition leader down to the Labor candidate for Dawson, and we can be left in no doubt that a Labor Shorten Government would say ‘to hell with the workers, we’re axing a project that will create up to 10,000 jobs’.It’s also a project that will pour billions of dollars into state and national coffers.Mr Butler was right about one thing; he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand economics and he doesn’t understand that massive job-creating projects are vitally important for the people of my region.All he understands is that he must pander to the Greens and their voters.[box style="1 or 2"]Other examples of Labor’s lack of support for coal and the Carmichael Coal Project: June 1: Opposition Leader Bill Shorten was asked up to five times whether Labor supported coal mining, and the Adani Carmichael Coal Project in particular and the best Mr Shorten could offer was: ‘You ask do I support it? It's not up to me. To support a particular business enterprise.’ May 30: Labor Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition Terri Butler on the ABC’s Q&A program stated: ‘I don’t support the Adani mine either I’ve got to say’. May 10: Labor’s Bill Shorten stated in Mackay: ‘The Commonwealth Government I lead wouldn’t be putting taxpayers’ money into the Adani mine’ April 2016: Labor candidate for the Brisbane seat of Ryan boasted that two Brisbane Labor Party branches had passed resolutions withdrawing support for ‘Galilee Basin Coal Mining developments and any other coal mine in Queensland’. February 8: Labor candidate for Dawson Frank Gilbert declared his hand on the mining industry by stating that George Christensen was ‘ignorant and irresponsible’ for backing the fossil fuel industry in a Facebook post. [/box]