Mining motion reveals Labor’s deep divide

Queensland Labor’s right faction has warned of pain for Anthony Albanese at the next election over the party’s divided stance on fossil fuels.

Queensland Labor's state conference at Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre in June. Picture: Richard Walker

Queensland Labor’s Right faction has warned of pain for Anthony Albanese at the next election over the party’s divided stance on fossil fuels.

The floor of Labor state conference in Brisbane erupted on Sunday over a motion put forward by the Right faction calling for the continued expansion to the state’s gas industry and to find new underground gas tenements in regional Queensland.

A shout of “three more years of ScoMo” went up from within the delegates on the Right when the motion was voted down by the Left faction, and speakers in favour of the motion warned their fellow party members that they were ignoring the lessons of the 2019 election.

It came a day after Mr Albanese gave a speech to the conference talking up the importance of mining.

“Queensland’s huge coal and bauxite reserves are of such high quality, they are – and will remain – highly sought overseas,” he said.

The Coalition holds 23 of Queensland’s 27 federal seats and Labor holds no seats in regional Queensland, where the bulk of the state’s mining workforce is employed.

The party’s poor performance in Queensland in the 2019 federal election was partly blamed on the party’s mixed messages on approval of the Adani mine and perceived ambivalence toward the fossil coal industry.

Delegate Nino Lalic told the conference the Left’s criticism of the mining industry was “outrageous”, describing it as “self-righteous hypocrisy”.

“There’s nothing more ridiculous than people living in Brisbane telling people in regional Queensland what jobs are right, what jobs aren’t,” he said.

“Have you learned nothing from the 2019 federal election. As long as those opposite are in charge of running our campaign you’re going to see more losses in regional Queensland.”

One speaker from the Left-aligned Labor Environment Action Network against the motion said domestic gas shortages could be overcome by ending exporting, comparing opening new gas mining tenements to a coffee shop opening next door to a rival.

“If there’s an issue with domestic gas, we could just stop exporting the gas we are currently exporting,” he said.

“If we indicate to the market, to the people of Queensland, that they have a future in these industries that are based on fossil fuels, we are inherently misleading them. There is not a market for this.”

Another speaker said the motion was a “false representation of what people in regional Queensland need”.

The comment drew howls from the Right side of the floor.

“These people need Queensland to keep doing what it’s doing, leading, looking to the future, thinking about how we can have a clean energy economy and not trapping themselves in the conservative past,” she said.

CFMEU Queensland Mining and Energy chief Stephen Smyth spoke out in favour of the motion, saying it was “good for regional growth”.

A push for the creation of a new scientific body to be used to “review, examine and investigate resources industries at every stage of operation” was not supported.