It's going to take more than a few Brissie basket weavers in rat masks to throw Ian "Macca" Macfarlane off his new job.
As the guest of honour at Wednesday's annual Queensland Resources Council lunch, the incoming CEO – and one-time Federal Resources Minister – reacted with trademark, Toowoomba-farmer indifference when asked whether he was rattled by the presence of protesters in rat costumes outside the lunch, decrying his appointment as a fix.
Or, as Greens Senator for QLD Larissa Waters so colourfully put it in a Tweet earlier this week: "Former Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane will be starting his shonky appointment to the Queensland Resources Council representing the coal industry this week. Australians know a dodgy deal when they see one – it's time to say "we smell a rat!"
Macca's response to the rodents at the door? "I don't take legal advice from people dressed as rats."
And fair enough too. Besides, if Andrew Robb can take a job with Port of Darwin's Chinese lessees, Landbridge, why can't he parlay his parliamentary experience with the digging-of-stuff-from-the-earth into a cushy, post-political-life lobbying gig?
The lunch was otherwise a spectacular display of mutual admiration and conveniently forgotten mutual enmities. To wit: the lavish praise Macca heaped on Queensland mines minister, the Labor MP, Anthony Lynham.
Eighteen months ago, the old Federal Coalition warhorse would have been kicking the crap out of a Commie like Lynham – but now it's all happy families.
