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"Setback" to Adani Group's Australian coalmining project, as federal court calls government approval "invalid"
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| Abbot Point coal export terminal to be used by Adanis for the project |
By Our Representative
In what is being interpreted as a major embarrassment to the
powerful Adani Group, known to be close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the
Mackay Conservation Group has won the case against India’s giant corporate house’s Carmichael
coal mining project in Galilee Basin in the Federal Court of Australia.
The
court called the “approval” granted to the one of the world’s biggest coalmining
projects by Australian Environment Minister Greg Hunt “invalid” citing
environmental grounds.
The case, launched by Mackay in January 2015, challenged
Environment Minister Greg Hunt’s approval of Carmichael on three grounds: that the
minister “incorrectly” assessed its climate impacts, “ignored” Adanis’ poor
environmental record, and “failed” to consider conservation advice from his own
department on the impact of the mine on two vulnerable species -- yakka skink
and ornamental snake.
“Minister Hunt conceded to the Court that he failed in his
duty to properly assess the Carmichael mine project in accordance with his
obligations under Federal environmental legislation”, Mackay stated in press
release, adding, the Court set aside the Carmichael mine’s federal approval on
the basis of the “failure” by the Minister to have regard to conservation advices
for the “two Commonwealth-listed vulnerable species.”
Calling it a “technical error” on the part of the Australian
environmental authorities, the Adani Group has reacted, “It should be noted the
approval did include appropriate conditions to manage the species protection of
the yakka skink and ornamental snake.”
It said, the “technical legal error” was on the part of Australia’s
Federal Environment Department, which led to an adverse the court decision. “We
have been advised that, because certain documents were not presented by the
Department in finalising the approval, it created a technical legal
vulnerability that is better to address now”, it added.
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| A coal train in Queensland province, where the project is located |
“Adani will await the Minister and his department’s timely
reconsideration of its approval application under the Commonwealth Environment
Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act”, it said, expressing “confidence”
that the conditions imposed on the existing approval “are robust and
appropriate once the technicality is addressed.”
The Adani Group is in the fifth year of the project, and is
seeking to finalize all approvals in order to meet timelines, which it says are
“critical”, so that the “community can realise the benefits associated with its
investments to date including 10,000 jobs and $22 billion in taxes and
royalties to be reinvested back into the community.”
Mackay, on the other hand, believed that the corporate house’s
Carmichael mine “would have ripped up precious habitat for threatened species
and sucked billions of litres of precious ground water every year”, adding, “The
burning of the coal from the mine would have driven global warming at a time
when science tells us coal reserves must be left in the ground.”
It claimed, “Adanis’ job and royalties figures for the
Carmichael project are fabrications. Global financial markets are backing away
from new investments in coal and the Queensland Treasury has assessed the
project as unbankable.”
Asking "Minister Hunt to see sense”, and “honour” his
obligations, Mackay said, based on the Federal Court’s decision, he should “take
the opportunity to reject this disastrous project once and for all.”
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