Angus Emmott calls for Annastacia Palaszczuk to cancel the free water licence given to Adani’s Carmichael coalmine

A Queensland farmer has raised enough money to air an advertisement during prime-time television in the state’s regional areas calling on the government to cancel the free and unlimited water licence given to Adani’s proposed Carmichael coalmine for 60 years.

Angus Emmott, who previously attracted almost 100,000 signatures to a petition fighting the same cause, has raised just over $25,000, allowing his group Farmers for Climate Action to buy ad space on television.

In the advertisement, which will begin airing this Sunday, Emmott says he cannot understand why the premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, granted the licence.

“I’m a third-generation grazier from out near Longreach,” he says. “Out here, nothing’s more precious than groundwater.”

In April, Palaszczuk announced the Queensland government had granted the mine a free, unlimited 60-year water licence. The licence acknowledges this will “have an impact on the underground water levels in the region of the mine” both during and after the planned Carmichael coalmine’s years of operation.

Farmers for Climate Action has also organised a candidates’ forum in the huge Queensland seat of Gregory on Sunday, which is currently held by the LNPs Lachlan Millar and would be host to the proposed Carmichael coalmine.

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Every candidate running for the seat has agreed to attend the forum, which organiser Michael Kane said was a sign of how seriously the issues of the mine, climate change and groundwater are taken in the area.

The sitting LNP member will attend, as well as the One Nation candidate, along with the Greens, Labor and an independent.

But he said it also showed how effective Farmers for Climate Action has been campaigning in the area.

“We’re heavily engaged out there,” Kane said. “We’ve been talking to farmers on the header as they’re harvesting wheat, we’ve been helping cattle grazers muster cows as we’re talking to them and we’ve had two forums out there.

“This is an organisation founded by farmers, run by farmers for farmers. So I think that means we have a fair bit of credibility, I guess you would say.”

In June this year, Farmers for Climate Action joined the Stop Adani alliance, becoming the 13th group to join. The decision coincided with Emmott’s petition being launched, which quickly gained 30,000 signatures. Palaszczuk has not agreed to Emmott’s request to deliver the petition in person.