“Let them eat cake,” she famously said.
Palaszczuk may have as well as said the same thing to the workers in central Queensland who are relying on the $16.5 billion Carmichael coal mine and infrastructure project to get off the ground.
In the middle of the Queensland election campaign she unilaterally decided to veto the $1 billion loan being applied for by Adani from the Commonwealth’s Northern Areas Infrastructure Facility for the rail corridor to port at Abbot Point.
Apparently she doesn’t want to embarrass her partner, PriceWaterhouseCoopers bean-counter Shaun Drabsch.
It seems Drabsch was involved in Adani’s application for the loan and Palaszczuk did not want him to be the subject of innuendo and rumour.
Federal Minister for Resources Matt Canavan – who has been a longstanding champion of the Adani project despite grumblings from LNP members from his own back bench – was outraged by the news.
He said the livelihood of thousands of Queenslanders was being put at risk because Palaszczuk had a “domestic” with her partner.
Canavan, who recently returned to the front bench after being cleared by the High Court over any citizenship conflicts arising from his Italian heritage on his mother’s side, is known for his straight talking.
“Thousands of jobs in northern Australia are being put at risk because of gossip,” he said.
“The Queensland Labor government has been all over the shop on Adani. Last year, they wrote to the Commonwealth government suggesting that we look at funding the Adani rail line through the NAIF.
“Then, in May this year, the Deputy Premier, Jackie Trad, said the Labor Government wouldn’t participate in any NAIF loan to the Adani project, which would effectively block federal funding. The next day, Curtis Pitt contradicted her, saying the Labor Government’s position was to support Adani being funded by NAIF.”
Canavan said the Premier was incorrect in suggesting the federal government could fund a NAIF project without the cooperation of the state government.
“Under the rules, a state must sign the NAIF project finance documents with the project proponent and have a role in management of the loan,” he said.
Ideology is not the issue here.
Some protestors against the Adani mine have argued government money should not be used to fund a project being proposed by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani.
However Pitt said the Queensland government was not opposed to the Queensland project receiving NAIF funding or any other form of federal government largesse.
It seems the Adani loan has only become a problem for Queensland Labor because of Palaszczuk’s domestic situation.
So while our political leaders change policies on a whim and fret over their citizenship status, major projects that could bolster the nation’s exports for the next 50 years are being used as playthings to garnish votes in marginal electorates and resolve domestic disputes.
