U-turn over Adani ban
Councillor seeks rethink on ‘laughable’ stance
A TWEED Shire Council decision led by the colloquially named Rainbow Four to ban companies involved with Indian mining giant Adani could be reversed next week.
Currently, any business that has performed work on the Carmichael coalmine in Central Queensland is ineligible for Tweed contracts.
Councillor James Owen wants to change that at next Thursday’s council meeting.
“It is a joke,” he said. “It’s just another example of council getting involved in things we don’t need to be.
“Say we want to go to tender to raise the wall on Clarrie Hall Dam (near Uki), we have to exclude really good tenders because they are working on the Adani mine.
“Our reputation is already laughable with a lot of the decisions made by those four (councillors Katie Milne, Chris Cherry, Ron
Reece Byrnes).”
The Liberal Party-affiliated councillor said political ideology was getting in the way of the council performing its duties. He said he had residents come to him concerned about the council’s stance on businesses that took up work on the controversial mine.
“You focus on your core strength and that is the problem with these other councillors, Cooper and they are focused on ideology and politics.
“It comes down to rates, roads and rubbish and I will say that until I am blue in the face. Council does do a lot more than just that, but it does not do Adani.”
Cr Owen said he believed he would have the support of fellow councillors Warren Polglase and Pryce Allsop, but conceded he would need one member of the Rainbow Four to change their mind. Cr Byrnes was a possible defector mentioned by Cr Owen.
He said he would be interested to see if the Labor-affiliated councillor would “slide into line” along with the party’s federal leader Anthony Albanese and Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.
With news the Tweed council’s position could change, Adani has spoken out against “activists” whose actions they say are resulting in “livelihoods being threatened”.
“After a nine-year journey that involved multiple robust scientific studies and legal challenges, the Carmichael project now ... is under construction delivering jobs and opportunities for regional Australia,” a spokesman said.
“We think it is only reasonable that Australian companies like our contractors and their employees are afforded the opportunity to go about their business without their livelihoods being threatened.”