With its support base spread wide, the government has to walk a razor’s edge on mining and environmental issues

'A fact of life': why Queensland's pollies must stick to the middle of the road

They’ve become a familiar sight whenever the premier ventures within cooee of one of Queensland’s rural communities. This time, about 50 farmers in green shirts are waiting outside the Mackay civic centre for Annastacia Palaszczuk, chanting loudly “you’re late, you’re wrong”.



The following night, a stone’s throw to the north in Airlie Beach, where locals make their living on the climate-threatened Great Barrier Reef, Palaszczuk picks members of the crowd at random and invites questions on any topic. Adani, Adani, Adani. Then Clive Palmer’s Alpha North coal proposal, from a man who promises at the outset not to ask about Adani.

Protesters to the left, protesters to the right. In a diverse part of a deeply complex state, the Palaszczuk government has to navigate some tricky terrain to maintain a centrist course.

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“You’ve sometimes got to say different things in different parts of the state,” one MP tells Guardian Australia. “If you nail your colours too strongly to the mast in one town, in the next you might get a kicking. That’s not to say we don’t take strong positions like we did on [tree clearing], but it’s a fact of life.”

Ministers have spent the past week in the Mackay and Whitsunday region, a stretch of about 150km of Queensland’s central coast; a large part of George Christensen’s marginal federal seat of Dawson, bookended by mining hubs, covered with endless fields of cane, and home to a tourism industry that promotes itself as “the heart of the reef”.



Mackay’s mayor, Greg Williamson, like Christensen, backs the idea of building a new coal-fired power station.

The association of marine park tourism operators, a group whose members include Whitsunday businesses, this month called this month for governments to “rapidly phase out coal and other fossil fuels and transition to renewable energy”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Queensland ministers have spent the past week in the Mackay and Whitsunday region, which forms a large part of George Christensen’s marginal federal seat of Dawson. Photograph: Tanya Ann Photography/Getty Images/Flickr RF

A woman at Airlie asks why the government is willing to trade thousands of long-term jobs on the reef for “a handful” at Adani, as studies show climate change is literally cooking corals.



“We need to get the balance right,” is a line the affable Palaszczuk, whose personal popularity is credited for helping Labor win a tricky election last year, trots out when discussion veers from infrastructure spending announcements to the thornier issues.

“I’m just as passionate as the next person about doing everything we possibly can [for the reef],” she says.



“When it comes to Adani we have made it crystal clear that it has to financially stack up independently itself. And we’re yet to see that.

“We’ve got to get the balance right, the world is changing. I get criticised for having a 50% renewable energy target that’s creating tens of thousands of jobs in regional Queensland. There are [also] a lot of jobs and employment in the resources sector, but we need to get the balance right.”

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Taking the middle road – or sometimes walking both sides of it – pleases few interest groups. But some believe it’s the only tenable option in a state where the politics is complicated by a divide not only between the urban south-east and the regions, but also from one community to the next. The government’s power base is in the urban south-east, but its thin majority owes as much to party heartland seats in mining towns such as Mackay.

The opposition leader, Deb Frecklington, says the government has, on issues such as Adani’s Carmichael mine, managed to take a position that is both for and against. It supports the mine, but with enough qualifications – strict conditions and no public funding – it can pitch itself to supporters as well as opponents.

“What this government is really good at is photo-opportunities and small little announcements that don’t make those communities any better,” Frecklington says.

“This is a government that is simply treading water.”

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Where the government has taken a stronger stance – on vegetation management laws to curb broadscale clearing – the reaction has been fierce, particularly from farmers. In Rockhampton last month, Palaszczuk was subject to some fairly vicious swearing and heckling outside the Beef Australia event. In Mackay, she ducked into the community meeting through a back door, saying she wouldn’t subject herself to that sort of treatment again.



“Frankly I’m happy for people to protest, but as premier of this state I’m not going to cop that verbal abuse,” she said the next day. “So when there is more respect shown, I’m more than happy to sit down and talk to farmers about their concerns.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Farmers say there has been no cumulative study of the impact on water from the proposed mines in the Galilee basin. Photograph: David Maurice Smith/The Guardian

Jason, a mining technician who does not want to give his last name, says Mackay is built on coal and he believes the government had gone soft on its support for blue-collar workers in the resources sector.



He was one of more than 20% of the people from Mackay who voted One Nation at last year’s state election, and says his family still supports Labor. He wants Adani’s Carmichael mine to go ahead.

“If people want to buy the coal and we’ve got the coal, then it’s putting people to work. In the end, why should we have to stop an industry that’s one of our main industries?

If people want to buy the coal and we’ve got the coal, then it’s putting people to work Jason, a mining technician

“You don’t reckon that whether we do go or don’t go ahead, it’s [going to] make any difference [to climate change]? If people need coal, they have to get it from somewhere.”

The state coordinator of Farmers for Climate Action, Michael Kane, has told the community meeting in Airlie he is concerned there has been no cumulative study of the impact on water from the proposed mines in the Galilee basin.

“A central pillar of the economy in Queensland and central Queensland is grazing and agricultural industries,” Kane says.

“There are huge amounts of water [needed for mining] and we don’t think there’s been a cumulative study done of the impacts of all of those mines in the Galilee basin.

“We think there is an El Nino coming ... so water is going to be critical out there. This is quite an urgent situation.”



The mines minister, Anthony Lynham responds by saying there will be a cumulative assessment done “if the Galilee basin ever gets up”.