Plibersek’s Adani race card is mind-boggling

As Tanya Plibersek has so keenly reminded us, Adani is not like other foreign-owned companies sure to bring in jobs and boost the economy, it’s an Indian-owned company. Which is apparently an issue, writes Mike O’Connor.

Do you ever hear David Jones described as a South African retailer or Lion Nathan, makers of Fourex, as a Japanese brewery?

Of course you don’t, although they are both owned by foreign companies. But when it comes to the politics of coal mining, it’s all very different.

As federal Labor front bencher Tanya Plibersek has reminded us, “we can’t rely on an Indian mining company to bring jobs to central and north Queensland”.

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The honourable member’s hypocrisy is mind boggling. Here is the woman who while claiming the moral high ground in criticising Peter Dutton’s ill-considered remarks about his political opponent is quite comfortable in playing the racial card against Adani in an attempt to placate the Greens.

The suggestion is that if it was a British company or American or even French or Italian it would be okay. But it’s Indian, dear boy and you just can’t trust your average Indian, now can you?

Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek has pointed out more than once that Adani is an Indian-owned company, as if that should be an issue. Picture: AAP/Lukas Coch

It was the Indians, of course, who copped the blame for the multi-billion dollar debacle surrounding Queensland Railways new generation of trains. Due to massive bureaucratic and political incompetence, the 75 trains as delivered were not fit for purpose.

The contract to build them was awarded to a Canadian company, but they were constructed in India so whenever the state government refers to them, they are “the Indian trains”.

It’s not that the stupidity of successive governments was responsible for this farce. It’s those damn Indians. You just can’t trust them to get the job done.

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We went to India last year and saw the Taj Mahal in all its marbled splendour and the Red Fort and the Pink Palace and watched the sun rise over the Ganges.

Along the way, we diverged from the tourist trail and spent three nights in a small lodge about halfway between Delhi and Agra and a short walk from a small village.

It was here I saw the real India that Adani has referenced in its appeal to the Palaszczuk Government to approve its coal mining operation in central Queensland’s Galilee Basin.

How awkward if Adani were owned by someone from Slovenia, where Plibersek’s parents were born or Poland from whence the Palaszczuks originally hailed. Picture: AAP/Darren England

Have any members of state cabinet ever taken the trouble, in the course of their global business class wanderings at the expense of the taxpayer, to witness first-hand the gut- wrenching poverty of rural Indians?

Of course they haven’t. But if they ever manage to prise themselves out of their five-star hotels and go bush, they will see people who have never known electric power.

The will see women cooking over open fires using cow dung as fuel in poorly ventilated huts and suffering fatal lung and respiratory disease as a result.

Their light is from oil lamps. The day ends when the sun goes down and the village goes dark and begins when it rises.

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Adani says it wants to use high quality Queensland coal to help bring electricity to these people, but the Premier, dancing to the tune being played by her deputy Jackie Trad, hides behind confected environmental issues.

How fortuitous it is for Plibersek and others of her ilk that Adani is owned by an Indian. How awkward if it had been owned by someone from Slovenia, where her parents were born or Poland from whence the Palaszczuks originally hailed.

Damn Indians. You just can’t trust them, dear boy.

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Originally published as Plibersek’s Adani race card is mind-boggling