Business leaders blast three local MPs on Adani project inaction

Townsville’s three State Government MPs have been told to stop treating North Queenslanders like “idiots” as the Adani mine project hits yet another hurdle.

TOWNSVILLE’S three State Government MPs have been told to stop treating North Queenslanders like “idiots” by one of their own Labor colleagues as the Adani mine project hits yet another hurdle.

Business leaders have also blasted the three local MPs — Scott Stewart, Aaron Harper, and Coralee O’Rourke — for their inaction on progressing the Carmichael mine.

Adani Australia yesterday rejected the final version of the controversial external review into its Black-throated Finch Management Plan in its entirety. The environmental plan is crucial to the progress of the mine.

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Leading Townsville developer Peter Tapiolas has told the three MPs to stop “hiding behind the black-throated finch”.

“There is no future for this city unless we can get it (the Adani project) back on its feet,” he said.

“We have to look to the future and we look to our elected reps, we put them there, to go and chase and work and be an advocate for growth in the city. They are failing us, they are failing us terribly,” Mr Tapiolas said.

Director of construction company Parkside Group Peter Tapiolas talks with the media regarding the Adani coal mine. Picture: Zak Simmonds

When asked if they would be approaching their own government to help the Adani project work through its latest hurdle, all three MPs said the independent review was part of normal due process. Adani Australia has called into question the independence of the review numerous times and highlighted it as yet another example of the State Government “shifting the goalposts”.

Repeat Labor candidate and Whitsunday Regional Council councillor Mike Brunker said the MPs needed to speak up and stop letting the State Government treat North Queenslanders like “idiots”.

“(They’re) coming up with all sorts of schemes and ways to try and stop it and delay (Adani) so the federal election can happen and they’ll say to (Opposition Leader Bill Shorten) ‘they haven’t started mining so you can pull their licence’,” Mr Brunker said.

“Someone has to give a good reality check within themselves in the State Government and get this project off the road. The man in the street in Townsville and across North Queensland knows that (the State Government is) having a go at us.”

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Business owner and Townsville Chamber of Commerce board member Kevin Booth said the local members needed to “go in to bat” for Adani jobseekers and make their position on the mine clear.

“It’s just they’ve been so quiet on the matter as to why this process is taking so long that they just need to get out and explain [it] to people,” he said.

Townsville Enterprise chairman Kevin Gill said it was time to let Adani “get on with it”.

“We have also been very clear that no project should face governments changing the goalposts because that undermines investment confidence for any number of major investments,” he said.

Townsville Enterprise Limited Chairman Kevin Gill

Thuringowa MP Aaron Harper said it was wrong to wedge politicians in the Adani project approval process.

“I’m not going to get into this whole Adani narrative that’s been going on for a number of years because they are simply going through an assessment process with the black-throated finch and still, yet to finish up an underground water assessment,” Mr Harper said.

“This is above politics, people are trying to make it about politics, when it is simply an assessment they have to go through.”

Townsville MP Scott Stewart said he had made representations to the Treasurer and ministers involved during the approval process.

“But on this occasion, the response I’m getting is allow this to go through the processes that any other mining company would need to go through as well,” he said.

Mundingburra MP Coralee O’Rourke said while she supported job creation through the resources industry, Adani’s project needed to “stack up both financially and environmentally”.

She said the department was acting as an independent regulator on the project free from political interference.

Originally published as Business leaders blast three local MPs on Adani project inaction