Anti-Adani and Vegan protesters are ratbags who should be fined or jailed if they break laws

Police have now been given the legislative power to get protester ratbags who break the law off our streets. They need to use it, writes Peter Gleeson. A few car inspections wouldn’t go astray either.

WHEN militant anti-Adani activists start comparing coal miners to Nazis and the Jewish Holocaust, it’s time to question their state of mind.

Never mind the histrionics of chaining themselves to train tracks, storming farms, hijacking prime ministerial speeches, taking live sheep from abattoirs and abusing police. They are all part of the modern-day protester’s weaponry. But it underlines a deeper malaise within Australia.

Bill Shorten has no plans to send back Adani mine approvals

Bob Brown’s mob of revolting protesters liken coal mines to gas chambers

Queensland pulls the welcome mat on anti-Adani protesters

Aussies back coal mining but not Adani

Most people regard anti-Adani, vegan and GetUp! protesters as ratbags. These activists are easily influenced, so malleable that they could so easily have joined the Hare Krishna movement if they hadn’t been beguiled by Greens policies.

But when they start comparing miners to Nazis, they deserve to be called out.

GetUp! volunteer in the federal electorate of Warringah. Picture: Jim O'Rourke

Saving the planet is admirable, while campaigning for the protection of cows or chickens is futile. The game is just about up. Big fines and jail time are now being introduced to stop this madness.

My concern is that somebody is going to get badly hurt. Because these activists have no regard for the law, using themselves as human shields against trains, for example, they run the real risk of injury.

Vegans who trespass on private property to complain about farmers and their animal husbandry methods are also in the firing line. Farmers carry guns. It’s part of being on the land.

In recent times, thousands of Aussie farmers have lost their livelihoods through the scourge of drought. Only a few months ago, scores lost their homes and stock through floods. Mother Nature can be cruel so the last thing those on the land need right now is hordes of vegan warriors telling them how to run their lives. Especially if they’re having a bad day because a bank hasn’t been as empathetic as it has in the past.

Anti-Adani protesters outside the Sydney Mining Club lunch on Thursday. Adani CEO Lucas Dow was speaking at the event. Picture: Hollie Adams

Nobody should be denied the opportunity to express their beliefs and opinions. But when protesters break the law or cross the line, the full force of the law must be applied.

Police have now been given the legislative power to get these people off our streets. They need to use it. A few car inspections wouldn’t go astray either.

The silent majority have been silent for too long.

The political opportunism from the Greens and independents like Julia Banks, Zali Steggall and Kerryn Phelps is breathtaking.

Greens Senate candidate Larissa Waters and Banks – the former Liberal MP who accused her colleagues of bullying and then refused to name them – have become fond of wearing anti-Adani earrings. It’s become more than a fashion statement.

Elena Matiussi-Pimm of Lismore at the Stop Adani rally in Mullumbimby on the weekend. Picture: Liam Kidston.

It portrays them as part of the great Greens conspiracy – fostered and encouraged by the Labor Party – to send the country broke off the back of unrealistic and crazy renewable energy targets.

The Labor Party needs to grow a set and distance itself from these zealots and stand up for coal miners and farmers by supporting Adani, and help to crack down on vegan activists.

Thinking Australians are awake to these prima donnas.

PRIVILEGED FEW AVOID TAX SLUG

THERE’S a sting attached to Bill Shorten’s plan to “reform’’ Australia’s superannuation system by slugging high-income earners with a fresh new tax.

The so-called Division 293 super tax proposed by Shorten imposes tax at 30 per cent rather than the standard 15 per cent on those who earn over $200,000 a year.

That means if you’re a doctor, lawyer, pilot, miner, dentist, engineer, tradie … if you work 60 hours a week and pass the magical $200,000 a year, you’ll be hit with a special ATO demand. It will be about $3000-$5000 and you can either pay it out of your pocket straight to the ATO or skim it off the top of your super balance, effectively reducing your retirement nest-egg.

Here’s the rub: the Division 293 does not apply to what’s called “higher level office holders’’. You are exempt from Division 293 tax applied to super contributions if you are a federal or state minister, a staffer of a minister, the Governor, the clerk of the house, the head of a public department, a judge, a justice or a magistrate of the court.

So, while the man in the street pays the tax, politicians, judges and senior bureaucrats are exempt.

Sort of explains everything, really.

IN BRIEF ...

TRAD LAYS CLAIM

FEW raised eyebrows in George Street with Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on a trade mission and out of the country for nearly two weeks. Acting Premier Jackie Trad was commenting on whether the Government would support the Adani Carmichael mine. She said “her government’’ wouldn’t be bullied into a decision. Maybe she got the memo. After all, Federal Coalition Minister Peter Dutton refers publicly to the Queensland Labor Government as the Trad Government.

Jackie Trad. Picture: Pic Annette Dew

PLENTY RIDING ON IT

THE AFL is under pressure to look into the gambling habits of three high-profile players. My source say the three players are “victims’’ who have done the lot, and their families are not coping.

ON THE BALL

FORMER banker Declan Carnes has been a busy boy. Not only has he been working for embattled Senator Brian Burston, but the Townsville-based Carnes is helping Clive Palmer. He’s also heading up the North Queensland Football Club. Not a bad effort for a bloke who was a part-owner of the North Ward branch of the BOQ when it was a central figure in the Storm Financial collapse a decade ago.

NQ Football GM Declan Carnes and Technical Officer Craig Perfect

BIG BAD BOB DID GOOD

GOLD Coast doctor George Clegg is on fire. He is the trainer of one of Queensland’s best greyhounds, Big Bad Bob, who chalked up win number 30 last Thursday night at Albion Park. George is also a part-owner of All Aged Stakes winner Pierata. Meanwhile, still now no word on a new dog track for southeast Queensland.

HOT FAVOURITE

FIRE Commissioner Katarina Carroll has been appointed to an internal panel assessing candidates for a number of Police Assistant Commissioner jobs. She was interviewed last week, among six candidates, for the Police Commissioner’s job after Ian Stewart announced he’d be retiring in July. She’s the odds-on favourite for the top police job. The fact that she has been appointed to a panel looking at who gets the next raft of senior police jobs seems to suggest she’s the likely Stewart replacement. The panel determining who gets the Police top job is the head of the Premier’s department, Dave Stewart.

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES) Commissioner Katarina Carroll. Picture: Supplied

COALITION’S GOOD MEDICINE

INTERESTING that Labor is keen to fight the Coalition on its “better’’ health credentials. Federal health Minister Greg Hunt has put more lifesaving medicines on the PBS than any other Minister. Health funding at the federal level is a furphy. It’s the states who determine how well you are looked after at hospitals.

Originally published as Anti-Adani and Vegan protesters are ratbags who should be fined or jailed if they break laws