Two more Labor MPs have taken a stand against the controversial Adani coalmine, with Victorians David Feeney and Peter Khalil expressing objections.
Rightwinger Feeney issued a statement on Facebook after a meeting with local activists, declaring the environmental costs of the Adani project “too high”.
“Whether you look at it financially or environmentally, this project just doesn’t stack up,” Feeney said.
He said the Turnbull government should not approve any subsidies to the project “but, even without this funding, the cost of this project to our future when it comes to the environment and real action on climate change is too high”.
Fellow Victorian Khalil, who represents the neighbouring electorate of Wills, has also issued a statement to local activists that points in the direction of outright opposition. The statement says the project should not go ahead “if it doesn’t stack up commercially and environmentally”.
“A billion dollars of taxpayers’ money should not be used to prop up this project,” the statement says.
The Tasmanian Labor senator Lisa Singh also departed from the official federal ALP position on Adani on Monday, telling Guardian Australia: “If we are going to be serious about climate change, we should not be starting any new coalmines in this country.
“I believe the Adani coalmine is a big mistake for this country. Our future, like India, has to be in renewables.”
Singh said she understood the need for jobs in the regions “but those jobs need to be long-term sustainable jobs”.
With an eye on the looming Queensland state election, and on several marginal seats in north Queensland with the potential to decide the next federal election, federal Labor has adopted a position that says the Adani mine can proceed on its merits but the project should not be given federal support.
The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, has argued there is no point having a giant coalmine if you wreck the reef “but, on the other hand, if the deal does stack up, if the science safeguards are there, if the experts are satisfied, then all well and good and there’ll be jobs created”.
The recent breakout by federal Labor MPs follows an intensifying civil society campaign against the project, which is applying pressure to a number of major party MPs in metropolitan areas.
A government MP from Queensland, Michelle Landry, acknowledged the pressure being placed on her colleagues in the southern states in a contribution she made during the Coalition party room meeting this week.
According to government sources, Landry told colleagues she understood the Adani project was causing grief for government MPs in the southern states but it was important for regional job creation.
The Labor breakout also follows a split in the Queensland Labor government about whether the mine should get a royalties holiday.
Shorten stepped around the Queensland fight when he spoke to reporters in Canberra on Wednesday. “I’m running for prime minister, not for premier,” he said.
Shorten said what the state government in Queensland chose to do on royalties for Adani was “ultimately a matter for them”.
He reiterated Labor’s statements that Adani should not be given taxpayer support.
“We will not use a dollar of the commonwealth taxpayers’ money,” Shorten told reporters. “If the Adani mine is a commercial success, then it doesn’t need the taxpayers to underwrite a $1bn loan for a multibillion-dollar coal company.”
