LNP’s Michelle Landry 'hasn't asked' how many jobs Adani coalmine will create

The Nationals MP Michelle Landry has conceded she does not have an exact figure for the number of ongoing jobs to be created by Adani’s Carmichael coalmine, but claimed it would be “considerable”.

Capricornia MP Michelle Landry believes the Carmichael
  coalmine will proceed because Adani has done ‘everything’ it’s been asked to.

In an interview marking the Queensland government’s decision to sign off on Adani’s groundwater management plan, Landry also compared the mine to an apartment block in Sydney, arguing that in neither case could regulators be certain of the environmental impact of the projects.

The chief executive of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Kelly O’Shanassy, has accused the Queensland government of adopting a “dig it and see approach” by allowing the mine to proceed with checks on its effect on ground springs to follow.

Read the story from The Guardian by Paul Karp - “LNP’s Michelle Landry 'hasn't asked' how many jobs Adani coalmine will create.”

Matt Canavan's optimistic coal forecast contradicts his own department

A senior federal minister has claimed new coal export figures strengthen the investment case for Adani’s Carmichael coalmine and the development of Queensland’s Galilee basin, but a report from his own department appears to show the opposite.

 Matt Canavan’s claim that new coal export figures strengthen
 the case for Adani’s Carmichael mine is not backed up by a
departmental report.

The Department of Industry, Innovation and Science released a report on Monday that included projections for global commodity prices and volumes.

A story in the Australian claiming coal was set to regain its spot “as the nation’s biggest export earner”, overtaking iron ore in 2018-19, quoted the resources minister, Matthew Canavan, as saying “the market conditions are right” for Queensland’s Galilee basin to start digging up large amounts of coal.

Read the story by Gareth Hutchens from The Guardian - “Matt Canavan's optimistic coal forecast contradicts his own department.”

Carmichael coal mine: politics, activism and the search for truth

The federal resources
minister, Matt Canavan.

The federal resources minister, Matt Canavan, wielded some big numbers this week as he pleaded with the Queensland media to help save the mining industry from an “unprecedented” threat.

The sunshine state, he said, was under attack from “environmental activists” who have brought court cases against Adani’s Carmichael coalmine. The big numbers came from a PricewaterhouseCoopers report, which found that “legal delays” had already cost Queensland $3.9bn in economic output and 2,665 “lost” jobs and had cost Adani $200m.

This, the minister advised the assembled media “is a story”.

Turns out, they were already onto it. Canavan cited what he called an “expose” in the previous week’s Sunday Mail entitled “Stop with Madness: Greens jeopardise Queensland’s future”. That story, in turn, favourably cited the minister railing against the greens and an accompanying editorial implored the federal government to “step in” and “rid Queensland of these delays”.

Conveniently, that happens to be exactly what the minister wants to do.

As a backbencher he was one of the most vocal advocates of the Abbott government’s so called “lawfare” changes – the amendments to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to remove the right of most environmental organisations and other groups to challenge developments under federal laws unless they can show they are “directly affected”. This, the government argued, would stop the dastardly “green saboteurs”. The senate refused to pass the changes and the early indications after Malcolm Turnbull became prime minister was that they would be shelved.

But Canavan is now the resources minister and is determined to revive them, speaking to the new senate crossbench and insisting the government “remains committed” to the changes.

Read Lenore Taylor’s story in The Guardian - “Carmichael coal mine: politics, activism and the search for truth.”