Shorten denies considering banning Adani under a Labor government

Bill Shorten has denied he considered banning the Adani coalmine project if a Labor government was elected.

Bill Shorten with Tasmanian Labor leader Rebecca White today, campaigning before tomorrow’s state election. Picture: Helen Kempton

Bill Shorten has denied he considered banning the Adani coalmine project if a Labor government was elected.

Environmentalist and businessman Geoff Cousins said this week that Mr Shorten had promised him — if he became prime minister at the next federal election — to use the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to revoke Adani’s federal environmental authority.

At a media conference today the Opposition Leader was not asked specifically about Mr Cousins’s claims, but said he accepted that if the mine went ahead, a future Labor government would not renege on the arrangement.

“I make no secret that I don’t like it very much. But I also accept the principle of Australian politics, that if one government enters into contracts, then a future government cannot simply rip them up. To do so would be sovereign risk.”

Mr Shorten, whose party is facing a tough fight with the Greens in the Batman by-election race in Melbourne, declared Labor was ”the party of the environment”.

“But I also travel to mining communities, coal communities. It is not an either or. We are a resource nation,” he told reporters in Tasmania today.

Greens demand position

Yesterday the Greens challenged Mr Shorten to clarify his position on whether a Labor government would move to revoke the ­licence for the $16.5 billion project.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale accused Labor of promoting conflicting messages to different audiences. “He’s been saying one thing to people who don’t want the mine to get built,” Senator Di Natale told Sky News. “And yet (it’s) a completely different story when he’s talking to coalminers in Queensland.”

Senator Di Natale demanded Mr Shorten guarantee that he would oppose the project and take a similar stand to Bob Hawke when the former Labor prime minister promised in the early 1980s that the Franklin dam in Tasmania would not be built.

“That’s what Bill Shorten needs to say — that it’s Labor policy not to build the Adani mine and if you elect the Labor Party we’ll do everything we can to make sure that mine’s not built,” he said.

Queensland Resources Council chief executive and former Liberal resources minister Ian Macfarlane yesterday warned that any tearing up of contracts would have a negative effect on Australia’s sovereign risk profile.

“I don’t know what Bill has said to Geoff Cousins about Adani, but whatever he said he should put it on the public record. If he supports the Adani coalmine — which he has said on occasions — then he should say so,” Mr Macfarlane said. “If he doesn’t, then he should be honest in terms of what he’s saying.”

The Australian revealed this week that Mr Shorten accepted a $17,000 private, green-funded tour of the Great Barrier Reef and charter flight over the Adani coalmine on January 23-24 from the Australian Conservation Foundation.

Mr Cousins said he discussed how to use federal laws to revoke the licence for the Adani mine on the evening of January 23 at a Port Douglas cafe with ACF chief executive Kelly O’Shanassy and Mr Shorten.

Mr Shorten and his office have not denied talking to Mr Cousins about how to use the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to revoke the licence for Adani, but the government ­argues there is no new evidence to justify such a move.