The reality is the Adani Carmichael mine will create enough jobs to be an economic gamechanger for this region.

ONE of the most tiresome aspects of the debate over Adani has been the contention over how many jobs it will actually generate.

According to supporters of the project, the mine will generate up to 10,000 jobs over its 50- year life cycle.

These include jobs in the construction of the mine infrastructure, expansion of the Abbott Point coal terminal at Bowen, building the 400km rail line to the pit, white- collar jobs at the Townsville corporate headquarters and thousands of indirect jobs that will flow from the direct ones.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has quoted this figure, as has Coalition senator and Northern Australia Minister Matt Canavan. It is partly based on an analysis that consultant GHD has compiled.

According to the anti- Adani juggernaut, the project will create very few jobs. The number this coalition repeatedly cites is 1464. Why that number? Well, that is the estimate of Jerome Fahrer, who arrived at that figure in a report he authored for ACIL Allen Consulting that Adani itself commissioned.

Until now, no one has questioned this estimate.

Now Jerome himself has belled the cat by conceding that, while he still believes in his number, GHD’s modelling – and its far higher estimate – is also right.

Both correct? Hmmm. That would be an inconvenient truth for the project- wrecking activists to digest.

Irrespective of what the real number is, surely it is time to move on.

The reality is the Adani Carmichael mine will create enough jobs to be an economic gamechanger for this region.

And no one, not even the green extremists trying to stop it, is arguing we don’t need many, many more jobs here.

People here are sick and tired of being lectured by Guardian- reading blowhards about the moral hazards of this project.

They are fed up with having to quell their excitement for fear of tut- tuts from the righton crowd who are all to ready to leap on to the moral high horse.

If you are against the Adani Carmichael mine, fine. It’s a free world. But spare us the lectures and the threats. Just yesterday those threats were issued again, with Adani protesters brandishing a banner declaring: “If you support Adani you will be targeted.”

That sort of divisive rhetoric serves no one, least of all people who oppose the project.