The Queensland environment department is examining claims that Adani’s chequered environmental and legal history is grounds to revoke its status as a “suitable operator” for Australia’s largest coalmine.



The department is considering an Environmental Justice Australia (EJA) report that questioned how Adani Mining continued to pass its “character check” in Queensland given the alleged role of related companies in “serious legal violations and extensive environmental harm in India”.

EJA said the state environmental regulator had given no regard to official reports in India that claimed one of the companies in the Adani group were destroying mangroves, blocking waterways and bribing officials. The report also suggested that the Adani Enterprises may have improperly disposed of fly ash, which could lead to localised air pollution.

An EJA lawyer, Ariane Wilkinson, said these claims had all emerged since 2010 when Adani Mining first purchased an environmental authority to operate in Queensland from another company.



Wilkinson called on the environment department to investigate Adani Mining’s “suitability to operate” under the Environmental Protection Act in Queensland, where the company wants to develop the Carmichael open-cut coalmine and expand the related Abbot Point coal port.

Wilkinson said the Newman government had overlooked the Adani group’s “truly terrible track record” in its “rush to fast-track” the Carmichael mine, which the company said would deliver 10,000 jobs and $22bn in taxes and royalties.

Adani Mining first obtained its environmental authority under the Bligh Labor government but the environment department has not been able to locate a copy.

The state environment department notified EJA last week it would examine its report but there is no indication yet of it commencing an investigation.

The department itself faces its own overhaul under the incoming Palaszczuk Labor government, with the director general, Jon Black, having to reapply for his job along with all other top bureaucrats.

The department’s oversight of the environmental conditions on risky projects such as mines, and its handling of related data, was criticised by the Queensland auditor general as “not fully effective” in a report last year.

Controversy around Adani Mining’s mine and port are linked to concerns about the Great Barrier Reef and the impacts of increased shipping traffic, dredging and annual carbon emissions from burning an amount of coal equal to a quarter of Australia’s total emissions.

A spokesman for Adani Group said the company rejected any suggestions its environmental approvals or suitability were “at issue”.

The spokesman said Adani Mining, since first obtaining suitable-operator status, had been through “five years of rigorous, science-based environmental approvals” with state and federal authorities.

“The environmental approvals Adani [Mining] has been granted through these thorough, independent, science-based approvals processes to date have been the strictest ever handed down by a federal government,” he said.

“Any company doing business in Australia is required to comply with Australian law. Adani is no different.”

The EJA report said the Queensland government failed to properly scrutinise “any of the numerous unlawful actions of Adani group companies that have occurred since [its] suitability was originally considered”.

The Indian environment ministry in December 2010 issued Adani Mundra a “show cause” notice threatening to cancel its environmental licence over allegations of large-scale mangrove destruction and other violations while running a port in the town of Mundra.

In 2013, a committee set up by the ministry recommended a $40m environmental restoration fund for Mundra, which has yet to be established.

In July 2011, the state ombudsman in the state of Karnataka alleged Adani Enterprises had bribed local port officials, police, customs and politicians to receive “undue favour” for its role in large-scale illegal iron ore exports.

Adani Enterprises has contested some of the reports against it by Indian officials, and a number of legal battles continue around the company’s activities in India.

Under a Newman government “green tape reduction” amendment in March 2013, Adani Mining, as the holder of an environmental authority, was automatically deemed a suitable operator in Queensland without undergoing government investigation or having to disclose its record elsewhere.

However, EJA said Queensland’s Environmental Protection Act still allowed for Adani’s Mining’s registration as a suitable operator to be cancelled.