Beware climate change cultists

Billions of dollars in projects and thousands of jobs are at risk as eco warriors game the system. These are people who are presiding over a modern day environmental Ponzi scheme, writes Peter Gleeson.

IMAGINE this. It’s a pre-production meeting among the Monty Python scriptwriters. John Cleese pipes up. “How about we do a skit on how all these big projects in Australia — mines, dams, roads, irrigation — are not going ahead because of these little creatures,’’ he says, with that inquisitorial Cleese look.

“What sort of little creatures?’’ fellow Python Michael Palin says.

“Oh, you know, little bloody creatures. You see them in Australia … snails, birds, prawns, snakes, skinks … yeah skinks,’’ Cleese says.

They all look at each other. Nah, won’t cut it they say. Too far-fetched. Let’s get back to flesh wounds.

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Surely, not even the blackest of Monty Python comedy could entertain the prospect of little creatures costing a modern-day society billions of dollars in royalties and thousands of extra jobs.

Little did the Monty Python Flyingb Circus know that nearly 50 years after their crazy hijinks emerged the world would be hijacked by The Climate Cult.

Anti-Adani coal mine protesters engage in a sit-in protest outside the Queensland government headquarters in Brisbane on December 12. Picture: AAP/Dan Peled

These are people who are presiding over a modern-day environmental Ponzi scheme.

Billions of dollars in Australian projects and thousands of jobs are at risk as eco warriors game the system. Their sole aim is to hold up big mining and construction projects.

They hit the jackpot when they stymie the legal process to such an extent that frustrated companies walk away.

Australia has spawned an environmental scientific cottage industry.

Big government departments encourage and foster complaints from Green groups that in turn get charitable donations and charitable status, paying no tax. The public think they are saving the whales, or the frogs, or the birds, or the bees.

Yet these groups do no scientific research. They are about stopping coal mining and infrastructure projects, all in the name of saving the planet.

The result is that Australians, particularly in regional areas, are being deprived of jobs by inner-city elites who want to feel good about how they saved a few hundred snails.

GetUp board member Daniel Stone with Bill Shorten.

This is extortion and it’s being aided and abetted by the Labor Party and the Greens with a healthy dollop of support from GetUp!, the Sunrise Project and the Australian Conservation Foundation.

The Ord River stage two project, designed to open up an additional 7400ha of irrigated land in Western Australia, was blocked by the Gouldian finch.

The Canadian proponents had to pay $1.5 million as an “offset’’ to fund research on sharks. We know the Tugun bypass on the Gold Coast was delayed because of a frog. In the end, then premier Peter Beattie said “just build it”’ and the government paid an extra $80 million for a bridge for the frogs. It was later established the frogs didn’t use the bridge and went underneath it instead.

Now to Adani. You seriously didn’t think I was going to forget Adani, which may go down in Australian history as the most maligned project ever built.

Despite providing all of the necessary environmental approvals in 2014, the Palaszczuk Government has now asked for yet another review into the impact on the Black-throated Finch.

Queensland Resources Council chief Ian Macfarlane. Picture: AAP/John Gass

Adani has already put aside 5600ha to preserve the yakka skink and 135ha for a snake.

Now, Adani must wait for another clearance, despite saying it would secure an additional 30,000ha of habitat for the finch.

Given that these conditions were approved four years ago, why are they now back on the agenda?

According to the Minerals Council, mining provides 15 per cent of Australia’s GDP.

It creates 217,600 jobs. It generates $90 billion a year for the purchase of mining equipment, technology and services, and over the past decade $185 billion has been paid to federal, state and territory governments in royalties.

Giving credence to the Left on stopping mines, dams, roads and irrigation is a nation destroyer.

Under Bill Shorten, they’ll be like a kid in a lolly shop.

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