Having lived next to the Liverpool Plains and farmed in that region for many years, I’m only too aware of the ravages of drought and declining water resources on much of the Murray-Darling Basin.

Conservationists question whether artesian water taken from bore holes will harm the fragile Doongmabulla Springs near Adani's Carmichael coal mine. Credit:Tom Jefferson/Lock the Gate

Dry times come and go but one thing is for sure: there is a bigger player in Australia’s weather systems than the El Niño siblings – climate change. Our top scientists are predicting that eastern Australia is only going to get less and more intermittent rainfall as our planet heats up.

Ignoring the recent warning signs – unprecedented drought and bushfire – and carrying on as normal is to risk vast areas of Australia.

At the last federal election the Coalition weaponised the Adani coal-mine issue to portray Labor as having a tin-ear for the concerns of regional Australia. But for all the bravado, the simple truth is that Adani will not be the saviour of regional Queensland. Far from it.