Adani could start building its controversial coalmine in just three weeks, after besieged Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk declared she’d had a “gutful” of delays in her own government’s approvals of the project.
The Conservative Party has long been calling for the project to be green-lit which will create more than 8,000 direct and indirect jobs and provide a surge for the Queensland and Australian economies.
The Australian reports, Ms Palaszczuk today said there had been a “breakthrough” in the impasse over Adani, declaring in Cairns that the deadline for a decision on Adani’s management plan for the endangered black-throated finch was May 31, while the decision on the company’s groundwater strategy would be released on June 13.
If both plans are signed off on by Queensland government officials, the company expects it will be able to break ground on the proposed Carmichael coal mine in central Queensland in as few as three weeks.
The latest version of Adani’s groundwater management plan has also been sent back to the CSIRO to consider.
The Australian revealed this morning that state officials and Adani had cleared the way for a major hurdle to the mine – the finch management plan – at high-level talks in Brisbane yesterday.
After months of refusing to intervene, Ms Palaszczuk on Wednesday declared she was “fed up” with her own government’s processes, and said the federal election result in Queensland had been a “wake-up call” on Adani.
Federal Labor was thumped in the state at the weekend poll, losing two seats and suffering a plunge in its primary vote.
The result sparked an internal revolt from state Labor MPs, particularly those based in jobs-starved regional Queensland, who said their voters were demanding certainty on Adani.
