Australian treasurer Joe Hockey says he’s working with Queensland treasurer Curtis Pitt to convince Indian conglomerate Adani to build its 189km rail line and 60 million tonnes per annum coal mine in Queensland’s Galilee Basin, despite environmental opposition and a substantial downturn in the commodities sector.
Hockey told ABC 612 Brisbane host Steve Austin on Monday the mining production phase was important to the Australian economy, and the massive Adani project would be important to that.
“We are doing everything we can to help to get the Adani Carmichael mine open,” Hockey said. “In fact in the last week of parliament we were prosecuting the case that it is plainly ridiculous that environmental groups, in Mackay for example, funded by NSW environmental lawyers, is able to challenge a mine 600km away and hold up approvals.”
The regulatory process being undertaken by Adani to set up its mine was stalled earlier this month when environmental groups won a court case which set aside environmental approvals for the mine itself.
Aside from that opposition, Adani is also faced with a tough market for coal, which is being worsened by a number of big banks which have apparently lost confidence in the project.
But Hockey is confident the project should go ahead.
“I spoke to Curtis Pitt, the Queensland treasurer, about this on Friday [August 21]. We are working together to see what we can do to further encourage Adani to continue with the mining process,” the federal treasurer revealed.
“One of the things [Adani are] looking at is how we can ensure that the railway line remains financially viable. And I can’t give away too many details but we’re working away at that.”
Hockey’s boss, Tony Abbott, last week ignited tensions when he criticised the stalling of Adani’s project as an act of “sabotage”.
“We want the highest environmental standards to apply to new projects in Australia,” the PM said in Canberra, “but once those standards have been met, those projects must be allowed to proceed.”
The Mackay Conservation Group recently successfully challenged Adani’s project in Federal Court. Abbott plans to cancel legislation allowing that to happen again.
Why should we taxpayers subsidise Adani? Like any project that we SME’s investigate, if the returns aren’t there, then the project doesn’t go ahead. It is as simple as that.
Gross misrepresentation by Treasurer Hockey.
The environment groups did not “challenge the mine”. They pointed to the government’s failure to fully comply with its own legislation!
The distance that an expert may live from the mine site is irrelevant. All Hockey’s advisors don’t live in Canberra.
Hockey and Abbott are living in the past. Any number of economists and bankers are pointing to the risks of building the mine – “We are subsidising carbon when we should go low carbon…” – Connie Hedegaard, former EU commissioner, in the Sydney Morning herald, 25.8.15. As Professor Peter Newman has said, Australia’s future should lie in contributing to the “knowledge’ economy. There are at least as many jobs in the future of renewable energy as there are in coal mining!
And finally, the railway. If it is built, it won’t create jobs. It will be fully automated, like Rio’s trucks in the Pilbarra.
He can fund his buddies at the big end of town for a rail project but not for urban rail. Typical LNP, Taking bribes from the big end of town!!!
Joe doesn’t like windmills blighting the landscape on his drive to Canberra. Does he prefer the look of a big open cut mine across the Galilee basin. Have you flown over the Hunter mines lately? Surely they are far worse than Lake George windmills. Before Adani goes ahead it is only right and proper the the Abbott Government complies with Howard Govt legislation.