Media Release

14 May 2019

Commenting on new CSIRO emails released today by the ABC, showing the agency was pressured by the Coalition government to approve Adani's controversial water plan within a number of hours, despite holding outstanding concerns, underline why Minister Price’s controversial decision should be reviewed, said Mackay Conservation Group today (“Adani water plan ticked off within hours despite lack of detail, internal CSIRO emails reveal”, ABC today).

Peter McCallum, Mackay co-ordinator of the Defend our Water Campaign - Not One Drop for Adani said, “It’s clear from these new CSIRO emails, released under right to information laws, that the agency responsible for properly scrutinising Adani’s groundwater plans was under a lot of pressure to tick off on the plans before the election was called.

The ABC reports the CSIRO was asked to provide a letter of advice, on which Minister Price could rely, merely on the basis of a verbal briefing and a short summary document provided that day.

“Adani CEO Mr Lucas Dow calls the CSIRO and GeoScience Australia ‘two of the most preeminent science organisations in Australia’. Knowing they had outstanding concerns about Adani’s groundwater plan are cause for all Australians to be concerned about the risks posed to our precious water supplies by Adani’s mine.

13 May 2019

MCG Calls for Scientific Review of Adani’s Groundwater Plans

The Mackay Conservation Group (MCG) says scientists should be asked further questions about Adani’s groundwater plans as a necessary precaution for the protection of essential groundwater resources, including the Great Artesian Basin and the Doongmabulla Springs.

The Federal Government approved the groundwater plan for Adani’s coal project in controversial circumstances days before the announcement of the Federal election and with serious questions raised about potential political interference.

MCG Community Organiser, Michael Kane, said groundwater resources are the lifeblood of Queensland farming, regional communities and the environment and too valuable to risk for a massive coal mine.

“Adani has an appalling track record when it comes to water protection, including unlawful release of coal-contaminated water into the protected Caley Valley Wetlands and Great Barrier Reef waters from its Abbot Point port operations.

Iceland is an interesting country. It has a population of 340,000 people, about the same as the population of Mackay and Townsville combined. Its land area is just more than the Mackay-Isaac-Whitsunday Region.

The Global Financial Crisis saw Iceland’s banking system collapse and the Icelandic economy went into free fall. Economic output slowed rapidly and the unemployment rate doubled. Ten years later Iceland has the world’s highest average income. While Australia’s GDP has stagnated, Iceland’s has been on a rapid growth trajectory. 

According to the CIA’s World Factbook, Iceland’s abundant renewable energy has led to a boom in investment by power hungry industries such as aluminium smelting and information technology. In addition to industry, Iceland has built a thriving tourism economy. All that has happened in a sparsely populated place, isolated from other countries by hostile oceans and on the edge of the arctic circle. 

Our region has fantastic resources that we can turn to our advantage. We have more sunny days than most parts of the world. The wind blows consistently and we produce renewable power from sugar cane waste.

MEDIA RELEASE
11 May 2018

Adani Industry rally: Mackay locals demand future for youth, water and agriculture

As the Resource Industry Network prepares to rally in Mackay on Saturday, spokespeople for the Central Queensland Defend our Water campaign are calling for a future beyond coal that protects young people, Queensland water resources and agriculture.  

Mackay cane grower Len Thompson said, “Coal has been a big part of Queensland’s past but we can’t bet our future on it. Locals around here realise Adani’s mine offers false hope.  Whoever wins government has to develop a plan which will work for Central Queensland’s long term economic future.

“As a farmer I know that water is essential and a big question mark hangs over Adani’s groundwater impacts.

“Adani’s mine threatens Queensland’s water and our food security. We can’t afford to damage agriculture by digging new mines which will drive even more heatwaves, droughts and fires in this region.”

As Australians we pride ourselves on being egalitarian, the land of the fair go. Yet there’s nothing egalitarian about the treatment that Indigenous Australians receive. Apart from poorer health, incarceration, life expectancy and income statistics, the law is used against Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in a way that a fair justice system should never allow.

The dispossession of Indigenous Australians began in 1788. When Britain took possession of the continent in the eighteenth century it claimed the sole sovereign right of land ownership. That was despite an established set of land ownership laws that had been developed over tens of thousands of years by the First Australians.

Central Queenslanders are feeling the impacts of climate change. The region suffered through the hottest summer on record that inflicted seemingly endless weeks of extreme heat, wild fires in Eungella National Park and unprecedented flooding that is estimated to have killed half a million cattle or more in the Townsville region.

Unfortunately the Australian government’s response to this is to open up the Galilee Basin to build Adani’s Carmichael coal mine and up to 8 more mega coal mines in the region.

The carbon emissions from these mines were they to go ahead would increase dangerous climate change here in Australia but all around the world with devastating consequences.

Adani’s Carmichael mine in the Galilee Basin, central Queensland is a long way from receiving all of the approvals it needs before it will be ready to break ground.

One of the key hurdles Adani needs to overcome is to have their management plan for the tiny Black Throated Finch (BTF) approved by the Queensland government.

Unfortunately for Adani and the BTF a substantial amount of the finch’s remaining habitat resides within the 28 000 hectare footprint of the Carmichael Mine.

Adani has made many claims about the number of jobs its mine will generate. They have often said that the mine will create ten thousand jobs. Last year at a mining industry forum in Mackay it was claimed that 16,000 direct and indirect jobs would be created. Former prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, spoke about “tens of thousands of jobs” flowing from the project while visiting Adani’s operations in India.

When asked to provide evidence under oath in court, Adani’s economic expert said that the project would create 1,464 direct and indirect jobs. That’s a big number but it's a long way short of the ten thousand touted in public by the company.

The biggest cloud hanging over jobs in the mining industry isn’t whether or not politicians support a single mining project. The major driver of declining employment in coal worldwide has been the desire of mining companies to maximise profits through automation. Every nation that produces coal has witnessed mechanisation drive employment lower, even when production increased.

Nearly 100 Mackay residents took to the streets on Saturday 13th April to march against the approval of Adani's groundwater plans by the federal government.

The large crowd included indigenous leaders, farmers, school teachers, students and grandparents. It was a clear sign to our political leaders and the media that the Mackay community wanted real action on climate change, which starts with rejecting Adani's coal mine.

Local cane farmer, Len Thompson, spoke about how water is needed to start and sustain life, and how hard it is to live off the land without it.

"Out west, farmers out aren't lucky as we are on the coast. Every year there are long, long dry spells. And the only thing that keeps the farm running is bore water. Water from underground."

"They [Adani] haven't proved that they won't damage the water supplies, that farmers in the dry spells in Queensland depend upon."

"If they do wreck the aquifer, then those farms will become worthless forever."

Today is World Water Day and it’s worth taking a moment to think about what we can do to help improve access to this precious resource. The United Nations has a goal of “water for everyone by 2030”. Nobody should be left without ready access to safe, clean water. It’s a human right, yet billions of people, especially those with little political, social or economic clout are living without access to safe water.

www.mackayconservationgroup.org.au/WaterPetition

Australians are more aware of the need to be careful with water than people in any other developed country. We live on the driest inhabited continent on earth, so we know that water can run out, even in the biggest cities. It wasn’t very long ago that Brisbane faced a water crisis as dams dropped to extremely low levels. This month Sydney has had to turn on its desalination plant for the first time since it was completed in 2010 because dams have dropped to less than 60 per cent of capacity.