State Labor supports anti-jobs green group

THE State Labor Government has just given $50,000, in its budget released this week, to the Mackay Conservation Group.This is a purely political group specialising in attacking our job-creating industries including mining and sugar.Why is the Palaszczuk Labor Government professing to support the Adani project on one hand, and yet funds one of its greatest adversaries on the other?The Mackay Conservation Group, who actively endorsed Labor MP Julieanne Gilbert's campaign, is a purely political organisation.It does little or no on-the-ground conservation work. Their efforts lie in political campaigns and lobbying government to stop job-creating development.

• MCG is one of the lead litigants against Adani’s projects, tying up the developer in an ongoing Land Court case which should report to the State Government later this year.
• MCG were signatories to the Stopping the Australia Coal Export Boom document which seeks to shut down the coal industry, a move which would destroy Mackay.
• MCG have previously run campaigns criticising the sugar industry
• MCG have brought in professional activists in recent years from southern states to run Mackay Conservation Group and stir up local discontent and divide our community. These activists are hard core extreme green campaigners who have been involved in groups who actively and proudly break the law like the Quit Coal movement.

The Capricornia Conservation Council ( $50,000) and Gladstone Conservation Council ($25,000) also received funding in the State Government’s budget.That’s a combined $125,000 to fund groups who seek to deny Central Queenslanders jobs.The questions that need to be answered are these:What is the State government doing? Does it support the Abbot Point expansion?What is this $50,000 going to be used for?  Will it pay the wages of the hard core extreme green activists who run the MCG?Will it fund more legal challenges against job creating projects or public campaigns against mining?And will the State government, in the interests of fairness, give $50,000 to a local industry advocacy group like the Resource Industry Network to balance the political argument?