'Sprint to the election': Anti-Adani groups target Labor
13 December 2018
Sydney Morning Herald
An alliance of groups opposed to the proposed Adani coal mine are stepping up their campaign, targeting Labor leader Bill Shorten ahead of his party's national conference starting this weekend.
The Stop Adani Alliance - which claims two million supporters among its 38 member groups - will on Thursday unleash an advertising campaign and release polling showing four in five respondents want the government to intervene to stop the project.
The first of a three-phased strategy will involve a so-called "summer of action", aimed at pressing federal Labor to shift its ambiguous stance on the mine, which has the potential to open up the huge new coal province in Queensland's Galilee Basin if it proceeds.
Mobile billboards will buzz the ALP's National Conference in Adelaide, while organisers within the event will try to raise the Adani issue during Sunday's debate on Labor's climate platform.
Phase two will involve a "sprint to the election". "We will make stopping Adani the number one issue in what will be the climate election," John Hepburn, executive director of the Sunrise Project, said.
"If there was ever a time to demonstrate Labor’s commitment to do what it takes to protect Australians from the worsening impacts of climate change, now is it."
March for Our Future to stop Adani, held in Brisbane.
A third phase would focus on pressing the newly elected federal government - the elections are expected in May - to move against the mine within its first 100 days of office.
Last month, Adani's chief executive Lucas Dow, said the company would self-fund the construction of a scaled-down version of the mine after failing to secure funds from elsewhere.
"Commencement of works are imminent," an Adani spokeswoman said, declining to specify a date.
Last month, Mr Shorten said of Adani: "We don't know what they'll be up to by the time we get into government. So we'll deal with facts and the situation [related to Adani that] we're presented with if we win the election in 24 weeks' time...We'll be guided by the best science and the national interest."
Mr Shorten also last month launched Labor's plan to revive the National Energy Guarantee as a key plank in its election platform. The Herald understands an original plan to release the rest of Labor's emissions plans - such as how agriculture and industry's carbon pollution would be treated - will now not be released until after January.
The Alliance's national ReachTel poll of 2345 conducted on December 4 found 56 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement: "Digging new coal mines in Australia is no longer in the national interest".
Among those self-described as Labor supporters, 80.2 per cent agreed or strongly agree with the statement, compared with about 24 per cent of Liberal and 28.6 per cent of National voters.
On the question of whether the federal government should review the environmental approvals for Adani, about 92 per cent of Labor supporters agreed, as did about 52 per cent of both Liberal and National voters, the poll found.
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