Mea Coalpa

In an attempt to win back Queensland voters following the May election, in December 2019, Labor leader Anthony Albanese planned a four-day trip to ‘coal country’. He offered support for exporting coal, but resisted calls to make the unequivocal three-word statement — ‘I support Adani’ — about Adani’s controversial Carmichael mine. To the disappointment of climate change activists, however, he acknowledged the fait accompli: ‘It has been approved. They need to proceed with creating the jobs that will come from that project.’