The Australian federal election result is sending shockwaves through the Queensland state Labor government. The Adani coalmine is widely seen as a key factor in the almost-obliteration of federal Labor in that state. The Palaszczuk government has gone into panic mode.
After all, it was only two state elections ago that Queensland Labor was also almost wiped out: reduced to just enough MPs to squeeze into a family sedan. quote.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has spectacularly backflipped on her government’s forced delays of approvals to controversial Adani coal mine, in the wake of federal Labor’s wipe-out in the state at the weekend election.
After internal pressure from her own party to act on Adani after federal Labor’s primary vote crashed at the weekend, Ms Palaszczuk raced to the mining city of Mackay today and ordered her own Environment Department to meet with Adani and the state’s Coordinator-General and sort out a timeline for the approvals.
Until now, Ms Palaszczuk has refused to intervene in her government’s moves to delay the project by up to five years.
“I think that the community is fed up with the processes, I know I’m fed up with the processes, I know my local members are fed up with the processes,” Ms Palaszczuk said in Mackay today. end quote.
Like Bill Shorten, Palaszczuk has been trying to straddle a barbed-wire fence on Adani, and play to both the blue-collar mining vote and the green-collar climate change vote. Palaszczuk’s arms-length act fooled nobody: if her government was fudging and delaying and trying to kill the mine with death by a thousand impact statements, there’s no doubt that she, and especially her deputy Jackie Trad, were making it happen.
Trying to pretend to “decisiveness” now is even less convincing. quote.
For weeks, Ms Palaszczuk and her Deputy Premier have been refusing to answer Adani’s written requests to meet over state government forced delays on the proposed Carmichael coal mine in central Queensland. In the past six months, extraordinary reviews of Adani’s management plans — following state and federal environmental approvals — have threatened to blow out the start of construction of the mine by five years.
But today the Premier — wearing a hard hat at the Hay Point port — insisted she was personally “fed up” and frustrated with her own government’s processes on Adani.
She said the time frames for the mining project’s approvals would be sorted out and released publicly on Friday. However, she would not commit to when or if the mine would be approved. end quote.
theaustralian
Palaszczuk still has 18 months before the next election. She’s clearly desperate to repair the damage and hopes it’s forgotten about by October 2020.