This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Queensland’s premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, says she is “fed up” with the state’s process for Adani’s Carmichael coalmine and has called an emergency meeting to set a deadline for the outstanding approvals.

Labor’s vote was hit hard on Saturday in central Queensland seats including Dawson, Herbert and Capricornia, which some commentary has attributed to anger over environmental campaigns against the mine and federal Labor’s failure to articulate a clear position on the development.

“I think that the community is fed up with the processes. I know I’m fed up with the processes. I know my local members are fed up with the processes,” Palaszczuk said on Wednesday.

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“We need some certainty and we need some time frames. I mean, enough is enough.”

The premier said she wanted Adani and the environmental regulator to meet Queensland’s coordinator general on Thursday and set a timeline for the outstanding reports the company needs to complete to receive its final state approvals.

Those reports are the company’s groundwater management plan, which has received federal sign-off but still requires state approval, and its management plan for the endangered black-throated finch.

In May, Queensland’s department of environment and science rejected the black-throated finch plan because the company hadn’t done enough to meet the requirements of its environmental authority.

Departmental representatives also met Adani representatives on Tuesday.

A spokeswoman said this was “a continuation of a series of meetings held between the department and the company to progress the plans and negotiations are continuing”.

“The department of environment and science has sought updated advice from CSIRO and Geoscience Australia on Adani’s groundwater dependent ecosystem management plan,” she said.

“This includes further clarification around the evidence to support identification of the source aquifers of the Doongmabulla Springs Complex.”

She said the advice would be important in determining whether the latest iteration of Adani’s groundwater plan had met “longstanding” conditions the company was required to meet.

Adani Mining’s chief executive, Lucas Dow, said on Tuesday that any timeline of longer than two weeks would be “another delaying tactic by the Queensland Labor government designed to delay thousands of jobs for regional Queenslanders”.

“We have been asking for clarity of process and timing from the Queensland Labor Government in relation to the approvals of our outstanding management plans for more than seven months now,” Dow said.

“We are looking forward to receiving a call from the Coordinator General so we can meet first thing tomorrow morning, and at that meeting I will be seeking the timeline for approving the two outstanding management plans come to a conclusion within the next two weeks.”

Approval of the mine would trigger strong criticism from environment groups and Australians concerned about the climate crisis.

Scientists have long stated that for the world to remain within a carbon budget that would keep the planet on course for global heating that does not exceed 2C, no new fossil fuel projects can be developed.

There are also outstanding questions about the federal approval for Adani’s groundwater dependent ecosystem management plan in April, just before the prime minister, Scott Morrison, called the federal election.

The environment minister, Melissa Price, signed off on the plan despite advice from the CSIRO and Geoscience Australia raising concerns about the groundwater modelling and monitoring approaches taken by Adani, which officials said were not suitable for the company to meet the conditions of its environmental approval.

In a statement before the election, Price said the CSIRO and Geoscience Australia had said revised plans from Adani had met their strict scientific requirements, but this was questioned after the release of freedom of information documents to the ABC.

Environment groups urged the Queensland government not to bow to political pressure.

Peter McCallum, the coordinator of the Mackay Conservation Group, said the decision to fast-track the process “follows intense political pressure from the mining industry and the Murdoch press”.

“It is a kick in the guts for all those Queenslanders who were counting on the Palaszczuk government to make sound scientific decisions on environmental issues,” he said.

“Only yesterday the state development minister said that the government needed to thoroughly assess all the environmental impacts of the Adani mine because the Galilee Basin terrain was unknown compared with other coal mining regions of Queensland and there are still outstanding questions to answer.”

The Australian Conservation Foundation said there were still unanswered questions about Adani’s water use and that, regardless of the election outcome, the countries had to move to address the climate crisis.

“The Queensland Government should not cave in to pressure from Adani and the coal industry,” Basha Stasak, the Nature Program Manager at the Australian Conservation Foundation, said.

Meanwhile, mining company BHP published a strategy briefing on Wednesday in which it warned the market for thermal coal was challenged and that it would be prioritising resources linked to the shift to renewables.

The company’s chief financial officer, Peter Beavan, said in the briefing thermal coal’s outlook was that it would be “phased out, potentially sooner than expected” and that the company has “no appetite for growth in energy coal regardless of asset attractiveness”.

The report also questions the level of confidence in natural gas, stating it “could be leapfrogged by renewables in the power sector in developing countries”.



