Labor has forsaken blue-collar workers

Labor still proclaims to represent the workers. But in reality it just pockets the cash raised by union bosses while representing only issues that pass a morals test written by inner-city elites. How else do you explain the issue of Adani, asks Steven Wardill.

IT IS not without irony that the plaque in the foyer of Adani Australia’s Eagle St office is emblazoned with the name of former Labor premier Anna Bligh.

There must be days when the company’s chief Lucas Dow is sorely tempted to have that plaque torn down and unceremoniously thrown in the trash.

ANTI-COAL GROUP COULD DECIDE ADANI MINE

ADANI COULD BE LAST HOP FOR ENDANGERED FINCH

GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO BE HONEST ABOUT ADANI

However, maybe Dow should just keep that sign, at least for now.

Who knows? It may be worth something, some day.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk intervened to stop Adani getting a federally-funded loan for its railway to Abbot Point after her election campaign was being haunted by anti-Adani activists. Picture: AAP/John Gass

In so many ways that plaque represents how the modern Labor Party has metamorphosised over the past decade. The Adani case so aptly demonstrates how Labor has forsaken blue-collar workers and is now a puppet for left-wing elitism.

Sure, Labor still proclaims to represent workers like those who gathered under Barcaldine’s Tree of Knowledge during the 1892 shearers’ strike, and later formed the party.

But in reality it just pockets the cash raised by union bosses while representing only issues that pass a morals test written by those inner-city elites. How else to explain Queensland Labor’s capitulation to activists over the issue of Adani?

Back in late 2010, Bligh spruiked the 11,000 jobs on offer after the co-ordinator general granted “significant project status” to Adani’s proposed 60 million tonne per annum Carmichael coal mine.

The following year she insisted Adani’s $1.8 billion purchase of Abbot Point port justified asset sales with the cash going to Cyclone Yasi reconstruction.

“With these funds being committed to our reconstruction effort, it means the difficult decisions our government had to take are now paying off for Queenslanders when we need it most,” Bligh said.

Juxtapose this with late 2017 when Annastacia Palaszczuk intervened to stop Adani getting a federally-funded loan for its railway to Abbot Point after her election campaign was being haunted by anti-Adani activists.

And compare it to the Premier last week spruiking the miserly 500 jobs on offer from the Sconi ore project (if they ever eventuate) after her co-ordinator general granted it “prescribed project status”.

The difference is extraordinary.

However, the most totemic display of Labor’s ideological capitulation is the 11th hour ex gratia review it has ordered into the Carmichael mine’s management plan for the endangered black-throated finch.

According to some insiders, the department of Environment hasn’t ordered an external review in circumstances like this since 2008, and even then it was not contentious.

The Department certainly didn’t order a review when the Government’s Townsville Ring Road project impacted finch territory.

The resources industry is shocked at the Adani review.

It fears there’s a real sovereign risk argument developing in Queensland when processes are being altered to hinder a particular project.

What has made the review even more provocative is the fact five of the six people conducting it come from the Threatened Species Recovery Hub.

The Hub’s senior leaders have advocated radical action on climate change, opposed coal mining and rejected the use of biodiversity offsets to protect displaced species, which Adani’s management plan proposes to do. Their expertise is beyond question.

Their views on issues highly relevant to this case, however, were always going to raise questions about the impartiality of the review.

Just imagine if government-appointed experts conducting the review were loud and proud supporters of the coal industry. There would be protests in the streets, and rightly so.

With a draft copy expected to be handed to the department today, we’ll learn soon enough whether the questions about impartiality were warranted. But the fact that the Government so flagrantly disregarded what many would see as a perception of a conflict shows Labor has reached a new stage in its mutation.

Adani’s expressions of interest process has turned up a staggering 14,500 prospective employees, most of them Queenslanders and many of them unemployed. They’re plumbers, nurses, welders, electricians, office workers, accountants, cooks, painters, carpenters, engineers and cultural heritage protection officers.

If the review is uncomplimentary, is the Palaszczuk Government now really willing to scupper the Carmichael mine? Is it really willing to tell those blue-collar workers in regional Queensland to go find another job?

Until now, Labor, both federally and at a state level, has lacked the courage to take a position on Adani.

They’ve banged on about the mine needing to stack up financially and environmentally while refusing to say whether they hope it ticks both boxes.

But if the Carmichael coal mine now doesn’t proceed because the Government has moved the goalposts, what hope is there for other mine proposals, or indeed, any business that earns the ire of activists?

Between the loan veto and this review, the Government has engaged in a form of legalised industrial sabotage. It has been cajoled and bullied into this position by the protest movement and their media mouthpieces.

In the years since Bligh cut the ribbon to open Adani’s office, the company has certainly made some errors. It has made more than its fair share of announcements that did not come to fruition.

But the company is the victim here also. It has been caught in the approvals process just as Queensland Labor was abandoning its roots.

The light on the hill may still burn bright.

But it appears Labor has altered its focus and left blue-collar workers languishing in the dark.