The potential defeat of the LNP in Queensland is a blow to the environmentally destructive, profit-driven agenda of the conservatives. However, we should also be critical of Labor when it comes to the ongoing destruction of the Great Barrier Reef.

The ALP positioned itself in the recent state election as the only major party that will protect the reef. But Labor’s commitment to the coal port expansion at Abbot Point – as well as nine new coal mega-mines proposed for the Galilee Basin – shows that it is also a party of big business, not prepared to sacrifice corporate profits for a clean environment.

In fact, the Labor Party under former premier Anna Bligh in 2011 approved the Abbot Point expansion, which scientists and environmental groups warn will have a devastating impact on the reef, similar to the already witnessed destruction resulting from the Gladstone Harbour expansion.

Labor’s meagre commitment to the reef is the proposed banning of the sea-based disposal of the dredge spoil from Abbot Point and Gladstone Harbour within the World Heritage Area.

While the pledge is welcome, it will be a token gesture should the Abbot Point and Galilee Basin developments go ahead. James Trezise, an Australian Conservation Foundation policy coordinator, wrote at SBS online last month: “Current predictions suggest that within the Galilee Basin, the Carmichael mine alone could produce an extra 130 million tonnes of greenhouse gases over the mine’s lifetime – a quarter of Australia’s annual emissions. The pollution from the entire Galilee Basin, if all projects go ahead, will be more than Australia’s entire annual greenhouse gas pollution.”

Labor has changed its position on the disposal of dredge spoil only due to massive public opposition. This small victory was the result of tens of thousands of people protesting across the country over the last couple of years against reef destruction and climate change; in fact, they were the biggest and most popular demonstrations in recent years.

But we haven’t won yet. We still have a federal government that thinks “coal is good for humanity”. And going by its track record, the Labor Party cannot be trusted to challenge the prevailing profit before environment mantra.

Mining giant Adani, which owns the Galilee Basin mines, said that the Queensland election result won’t impede its building of the state’s largest coal mine. We need to keep hitting the streets and fighting wherever we can.

Band-aid policies are not enough. We need to challenge the logic of profit, which drives these harmful fossil fuel industries – which ultimately could kill the reef through climate change-induced warmer sea temperatures and acidification, dredge spoil dumping or not.

[Carl Jackson, National Union of Students environment officer.]