‘Don’t be conned on Adani’: CFMEU warns Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk

Powerful Left union the CFMEU has hit out at Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s Adani backflip warning her not to be “conned” to resolve it and save her leadership.

POWERFUL Left union the CFMEU has cautioned Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk not to be “conned” in her rush to resolve Adani and save her leadership and her Government ahead of next year’s State Election.

“This coal and the 12.5 billion litres of water that Adani also plans to extract every year, is owned by the people of Queensland, yet we see little evidence that Adani is offering anything in return,” CFMEU state secretary Michael Ravbar said in a statement.

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“Our concern is that the promise of jobs and prosperity that was such a touchstone in the federal election is a myth; a fiction designed to hoodwink people into thinking Adani will be a good corporate citizen.”

Annastacia Palaszczuk has been warned by the union not to be conned into resolving the Adani issue.

Ms Palaszcuk yesterday performed a stunning about-face on the Adani project in the wake of Federal Labor’s election drubbing on Saturday, announcing she had asked coordinator-general Barry Broe to intervene.

A meeting between Adani, the Environment Department and Mr Broe was taking place this morning ahead of the announcement of a timeline tomorrow.

CFMEU-backed Capricornia candidate Russell Robertson - himself a third-generation miner - was one of several Labor candidates to cop backlash at the ballot box over the ongoing Adani saga.

The party had held out hope of wresting the seat from the LNP’s Michelle Landry.

Instead she managed to win with a now comfortable margin.

“Before Ms Palaszczuk even thinks about pushing this project any further forward she must extract iron clad guarantees from Adani that the mine will bring long term, permanent jobs for Queenslanders, and also procure the maximum possible amount of goods and services from local communities,” Mr Ravbar said.

Premier Anastasia Palaszczuk and Jackie Trad have been under fire over the handling of Adani. Pic Peter Wallis

“Without such guarantees we all know what will happen. Adani will ship its construction workforce in from India under so-called free trade provisions while Australian engineers, construction workers and local suppliers miss out.”

“Then when the mine is operational it will be largely automated, with robots and remote controlled machinery – perhaps with a handful of labour hire workers on insecure, casual agreements - shipping our coal offshore with little or no benefit to local communities or the wider Queensland economy.

Union official Michael Ravbar has warned the Premier. Picture AAP/David Clark

“Without enforceable guarantees on secure local jobs and procurement – along with sureties relating to water security – the Premier risks being conned by corporate carpet baggers.”