Terry McCrann: Labor leader backing coal mine a bizarre state of affairs
You know times are strange when Labor’s Anthony Albanese is going into bat for extending a coal mine and the Coalition is largely silent, writes Terry McCrann.
Terry McCrann
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We’ve reached a bizarre state of affairs when Labor leader Anthony Albanese seems to be the major federal political leader going into bat for extending a coal mine — while the supposedly pro-coal “axe the (carbon) tax” party of former prime minister Tony Abbott is largely missing in inaction.
On Brisbane radio 4BC Tuesday, the (still) Opposition leader Albanese seemed to attack the long, long, delay to approval for the expansion of the relatively small New Acland coal mine — and so seemed to be indirectly supporting that expansion.
Without the expansion the mine will die and all existing jobs will be destroyed.
Albanese called for an overhaul of the environmental regulations for mining projects that had enabled the “extraordinarily long” 13-year — and still unfinished — battle to win approval to expand New Acland.
“We support jobs and we support the resources sector. It seems to me; common sense tells you that 13 years is an extraordinary long period of time,” Mr Albanese said.
Now, there’s both rather more and rather less in his “seeming support” for coal mines and this one in particular.
It was more classic Labor — at both federal and state levels. Albanese was trying to walk exactly the same two sides of the street in sunny coal-fired Queensland that his predecessor, Bill Shorten, tried so unsuccessfully to do before the last federal election.
That’s to say, south of the Tweed and especially in Paddington and around Sydney Harbour, home to that trio of shiny-eyed affie-greenies, Malcolm, Zali and Kerryn, and of course inner Melbourne, Labor leaders go the “Full Green”.
Or as Bob Dylan famously sang, they sing with gusto: that “the electricity answer is just blowing in the wind”.
But north of the Tweed? Well, no, they don’t go overly pro-coal: pro-coal for electricity and pro-coal for export to generate electricity everywhere else.
But they do try to be more — what’s that word? — nuanced. We are sort of in favour of coal but not to the extent that we think it should be used; or vice-versa, if you know what I mean and I hope you don’t really.
That sort of “nuance” was of course blown out of the water by that convoy of below-Tweed Greenies led by Bob Brown that travelled north just to ensure enough votes for Clive Palmer and Pauline Hanson to deliver the “miracle victory” to Scott Morrison.
Even just reading what Albanese actually said, he stopped well short of endorsing the mine or even calling for an end to the Green Tape that had strangled the very necessary development.
That’s my term, by the be — you would never, never hear a Labor pollie use those words “Green Tape”, not even when trying to tap-dance down the sunny — and the shady — side of the street.
He also stopped well and explicitly short of urging the Queensland government to call an end to the whole farce and approve the expansion.
That was the “rather less” of his “seeming support”. The “rather more” was the hot breath from some to many of his, for want of a better word, colleagues.
Three prominent federal Labor MPs — two of them opposition frontbenchers — have done exactly what Albanese did not do: emphatically call for an end to the impasse and a go-ahead for the mine.
At least that did cause Federal Resources Minister Keith Pitt to attack Albanese for not similarly demanding the go-ahead. But his government’s more fundamental support has been more missing in action than effective.
Albanese was able to breathe a huge sigh of relief after Labor crawled over the line in the Eden-Monaro by-election. But he is by no means out of the woods so far as his leadership is concerned.
The other reality of all this Labor “support” is that they all know there is no way the state government will approve the project while a High Court challenge against it is under way.
The real test of their support — and the bona fides of the Queensland government — will be if the Hugh Court throws out the challenge.
At that point, they must instantly put their money where their mouths are. They must be forced to choose which and only one side of the street they are walking.
ALAN ‘OPENS’ THE MINE DOOR
The way some pollies — from both sides of that supposed political fence — have crawled, albeit somewhat tentatively, out from under their beds might have something to do with the departure metaphorically south of one Alan Jones.
The otherwise pro-coal Jones has been a ferocious opponent of the mine and that word “ferocious” is probably a gross understatement.
He’s sensibly all in favour of coal mines, just not on the precious Darling Downs
and most, most especially not in the Acland of his boyhood.
So, Jones would haul his verbal thunderbolts at any pollie that dared, dared to support the expansion (and fracking in general), from his lofty media perch at the same 4BC on which Albanese was speaking.
But no more; not since his departure from the Nine Network of radio stations.
Yes, he can still throw those thunderbolts from his new perch at the Sky News Channel on Foxtel.
But that’s not quite the same thing as doing so from Brisbane’s own powerful talkback station.
This should provide an opportunity for Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who more than any other state pollie bowed directly to Jones’s imprecations.
That’s if she wants to stay premier after the election in November and with “shadow premier” Jackie gone, at least for the moment, if still remembered.
Originally published as Terry McCrann: Labor leader backing coal mine a bizarre state of affairs