I wish to speak out against plans by the Federal Government to hand $1B in taxpayer funds to build the single use railway line to the Adani Carmichael Coal project, which will destroy important groundwater resources in Central Queensland and rob much-needed funds from farm-related infrastructure development.
It was revealed on the weekend that the Government’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) is considering lending $1B to the Adani Group so that it can build the 310km railway line from the proposed coal mine to the port.
I just can’t see why Malcolm Turnbull and Barnaby Joyce would be handing over $1B in our taxes to a foreign billionaire for a private mining venture that will put our water resources at risk.
This is a case of Barnaby Joyce, as Minister for Agriculture and Water, pushing for the permanent destruction of water resources, including an important part of the Great Artesian Basin, which is the lifeblood of the agricultural industry which he vowed to protect when taking office.
We will literally be paying Adani to destroy our groundwater – it just doesn’t make any sense. This is a mine that will extract 355 billion litres of groundwater.
We thought that NAIF was finally going to deliver some much needed infrastructure to revitalise agriculture in our region, but instead it seems like they’re going to blow it on a foreign coal mine.
We desperately need funding in Central Queensland for improvements to our rail and road networks for agricultural freight, to dramatically improve telecommunications, and to open up new opportunities for value-added agriculture and solar energy projects.
This NAIF funding is needed to facilitate as many new rural enterprises as possible and to revitalise our communities for the long-term.
We are gutted that the Federal Government is instead going to throw it away on a foreign venture that will benefit only one foreign business owner, especially given the project is unlikely to be viable and hasn’t even been able to raise private finance.
The Federal Government previously promised that NAIF funding would only be spent on ‘common user facilities’, but there is nothing useful about this private coal line to other businesses in our region.
The $1B that is apparently earmarked for Adani is one fifth of the total $5B in NAIF funding, so we expect little else will come to our region from NAIF once this is allocated.
This is a project that will not last - within the life time of my children, the coal will be depleted, reliant businesses stripped of supply, the venture closed, miners unemployed, and groundwater supplies especially to the Great Artesian Basin in this area, destroyed forever.
Bruce Currie, Jericho