Bill Shorten ally Bill Ludwig flays ‘lefties’ over Adani

Bill Shorten’s mentor Bill Ludwig has blamed a ‘few lefties’ within Queensland’s government for politicising the Adani coalmine.

Former AWU national president Bill Ludwig. Picture: Adam Head

Bill Shorten’s mentor, former union leader Bill Ludwig, has blamed a “few lefties’’ within Queensland’s Labor government for politicising the Adani coalmine and backed the CFMEU’s threatened campaign against federal ALP candidates who refuse to support the project.

In sharply worded comments, Mr Ludwig said Deputy Premier and Left faction leader Jackie Trad “thinks she should be premier, but there’s not much chance of that ever happening”.

Mr Ludwig, former national president of Mr Shorten’s Australian Workers Union, said it was “fair enough’’ for the CFMEU to campaign against Labor candidates given the state government’s position on Adani.

MORE: Labor rift deepens over Adani

The move, revealed in The Australian on Monday, could cost the federal opposition winnable Coalition-held seats in Queensland at the federal election due in May.

“I don’t blame the coalies for doing what they’re doing because there’s jobs involved, and there’s no argument about the profitability and the need for the mine,’’ Mr Ludwig said.

Labor is increasingly split over Adani’s proposed Carmichael coalmine in central Queensland. Mining unions are ramping up pressure for political support for the project, which would open up the massive Galilee coal basin.

The federal opposition’s hopes that the project would be off the political agenda before the election were blown, when the Palas­zczuk government stalled the proposed mine with an 11th-hour review of the company’s strategy to protect the endangered black-throated finch.

The review prompted Steven Smyth — state head of the mining division of the CFMEU, one of Labor’s biggest donors — to put Labor MPs and candidates on ­notice to sign a pledge supporting Adani and the coal industry or face a union campaign against them.

Labor is targeting at least eight Coalition seats in Queensland — held on margins of up to 4 per cent — including four regional seats, with high unemployment that could benefit from the $2 billion Adani project.

The project could also prove decisive in the ultra-marginal Labor-held seat of Herbert, in Townsville, where incumbent MP Cathy O’Toole is refusing to respond to the CFMEU ultimatum.

Mr Ludwig, who retired from the AWU after decades as the Labor kingmaker in Queensland, said the Adani project had “turned political’’ despite the ­Indian conglomerate overcoming every “environmental hurdle’’.

Asked for his response to the review of Adani’s finch plan and his message for Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who is an AWU member, Mr Ludwig said: “I don’t know where the government are. I mean there are a few lefties in this … government, you know, it’s probably a little bit difficult.

“You’ve got protesters talking about the black-throated finch … I mean, this is so ridiculous, you just can’t understand where they’re coming from. I think the (state) government has given them every opportunity, because the do-gooders have taken them to court and done everything (and) they’ve lost and lost and lost, but then they come up with another one.’’

Mr Ludwig said he believed the proposed mine, which was vastly scaled down last year after starting out as a $16.5bn project, would go ahead. “There’s thousands and thousands of Indians over there still with bloody oil lamps that want bloody coal,’’ he said.

Mr Ludwig said the government had given anti-Adani activists “every opportunity’’.

Katter’s Australian Party leader Bob Katter said yesterday he was already in talks with the CFMEU leadership about the “bubbling divisions” within the union’s ranks. The KAP, which won three regional seats at the 2017 Queensland state election, is targeting Herbert, won by Labor in 2016 by 37 votes.

“They’re intelligent people,” Mr Katter said of the unionists. “They’re switched on, not locked into Labor — most have never been brought up in Labor traditions — and they’re big earners.”

Ms Palaszczuk yesterday refused to support new thermal coalmines in her state, including the Carmichael project, saying the “market will dictate that” and they must “stack up financially and also environmentally”.

“That company is not being treated differently to any other company,” the Premier said.

At a luncheon, Ms Palaszczuk defended her government’s decision to refer Adani’s finch plan to an outside panel of experts. She likened it to the federal government commissioning CSIRO to review the company’s groundwater management plan.

The panel’s final report, delivered to Adani late on Tuesday, recommended sweeping new controls on the mine, including an automatic shutdown of coalmining if finch populations declined over five years.