Apology accepted

Kathryn McConnochie , Stop Adani Byron Shire

Thanks to Greens candidate Michael Lyon for apologising for publishing the wrong information regarding Justine Elliot MP and her position on Adani in his campaign ad in The Echo (May 5).

Also for acknowledging the work of Stop Adani Byron Shire in successfully lobbying Ms Elliot to speak out against the Adani mine in parliament.

Stop Adani Byron Shire gathered many postcards from people in this electorate for National Party candidate Mathew Fraser on the Adani mine. Our members messaged him on Facebook for an address but there was no response from Mr Fraser.

Prior to the election, we emailed former Environment minister Melissa Price with a petition of 3,041 signatures from people in the Northern Rivers. It asked for better protection of the Great Barrier Reef (GBF) from industrialisation.

Thinking economic figures might grab Ms Price’s interest, we noted that tourism on the GBF is the single biggest employer in coastal tropical Queensland. Tourism provides 9.1 per cent of the total employment in Queensland. By contrast coal mining employs less than one per cent ofhttp://www.tai.org.au/ the Queensland workforce.

Unsurprisingly, Melissa couldn’t be lured to reply, even by the economic facts. She had gone missing nationally during the election campaign and ignored our concerns along with the rest of the nation’s trepidations about the future of this planet.

The recent documentary Dirty Power on YouTube exposes the influence that the coal lobby has on the coalition. This may shed some light on their silence.