The ALP war is over – and the Greens have won

Political commentators have long talked about a war being fought for the heart and soul of the Australian Labor Party. On one side we have the inner-city eco-trendies and on the other side is the working class.The true test came last week when the Liberal National Government in Queensland committed to invest in the infrastructure that enables the opening up of the Galilee Basin and creation of 27,000 jobs.It is the kind of investment in regional infrastructure and support for growth in the regions that hasn’t been seen since the days of Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen.It was a major win for Central and North Queensland, for workers, for industry, and the State. But it also posed a question for the Labor Party – would they support such a huge job-creating initiative. Who would win out? The inner-city eco-trendies or the workers?As the smoke clears, we can see the battle is over. The war has been won and it is the eco-trendies waving their green victory flag. Labor has sold out the workers of Queensland. They have sold out the workers of Mackay and they have sold out the workers of Bowen.Queensland’s Labor leader, Annastacia Palaszczuk, triumphantly declared that Labor will toss aside 27,000 jobs in the pursuit of more extreme green ideology. She promised that if Labor is elected next year, they will scrap the infrastructure investment that will open up the Galilee Basin and bring thousands of jobs to the State – tens of thousands of jobs.It’s a brave move, especially when you purport to represent (or used to represent) the working class. But it is something we could see coming. All the signs were there.The Greens completely took over the Federal Government while Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard had their backs turned (and had their backs stabbed by each other).Labor joined the howling Greens when Prime Minister Tony Abbott reaffirmed that coal did, indeed, have a future – a future also emphatically confirmed by the visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.I noted last week a childish and immature Buzzfeed list, sponsored by Labor, which derided the Prime Minister for saying he believed coal had a future.The truth is Labor doesn’t think coal has a future because Labor’s environment spokesman, Mark Butler, confirmed to ABC radio he wanted the coal industry wound up. And then, of course, Annastacia Palaszczuk released the green cat out of the bag – she wants the Galilee Basin and Abbot Point shut down too.In fact, Labor is now advertising that it won’t dump dredge spoil on the reef when the truth is that the LNP already negotiated land disposal at Abbott Point and there was never any plan by anyone to dump on the reef. The only purpose in continuing to spew out the extreme green furphies is to jeopardise the project by spooking people unnecessarily.Workers turned their backs on Labor at the last election and, in true Labor style, the Labor Party is plunging a knife into those workers’ backs.