Labor flounders with an issue it can’t fudge

It is little more than mindless stupid­ity that drives demonstrat­ors in every town, village and hamlet to oppose the Adani mine.

That opposition to one mine has morphed into opposition to coalmining in general, and that is as reckless and dangerous a position­ as it is possible to take.

Let those who believe this is possible to do immediately be the first to purchase their smelly, polluting­ kerosene lamps, because that is what they will need when the lights go out.

India is a developing country doing exactly what the first-world countries did when they were at the development stage.

It is building 40 coal-fired power stations. In a country where air quality in the larger cities­ is already terrible, the Indians are smart enough to know their coal, or coal from Indonesia, is the dirtiest coal on the planet.

Is it any wonder they seek to develop using Australian coal, the cleanest coal you can buy?

The environmental activists here are making the same mistakes­ they made with forestry. Instead of opting for controlled logging with some chance of sustainab­ility, the early Greens went for total prohibition.

This just provides more excuse for the Malaysians to continue with a corrupt, wholesale slaughter of their rainforests.

Everyone would love to see renewa­bles providing 100 per cent of our power but we are decades­ away from that.

Adani is the issue Labor just wants to disappear. We saw both Tony Burke and Richard Marles struggle when asked by journalists about Adani. Labor knows there is a massive sovereign risk problem looming for the party if it attempts­, in government, to stop the mine. Labor’s likely position then will be to look like it opposes the mine but claim it has no option­ other than to approve it.

Which foreigner would invest in Australia once it became known that a long and expensive approval process when passed could still end up with a negative response?

Labor will not get away with a fudge on this. A definite yes will be required and Bill Shorten should give this assurance now.