Adani megamine: Anti-coal activists bungle Abbot Point train protest

ACTIVISTS yesterday boarded a train in Abbot Point in a bid to curb climate change and highlight the impact of the planned Adani mine – only they made one huge mistake.

A coal train not far from the Anglo Coal German Creek mine, near the mining town of Middlemount, central Queensland.

LABELLED as clueless and anarchists, activists yesterday boarded the wrong train to Abbot Point in their bid to curb climate change and highlight the impact of the planned Adani mine.

And the cost to Queensland from delays in developing the megamine are now estimated at $700,000 a day in royalties.

According to the coal industry, the train boarded by the activists was almost certainly carrying coking coal, used for steel production, for which there is no reliable alternative, not the thermal coal Adani intends to export which is used in energy production.

The protesters, Anna Hush and Gareth Davies, were arrested after they boarded the train and draped a “Quit Coal’’ sign over one of the wagons. They stayed on board for three hours.

Queensland Resources Council chief executive Ian Macfarlane said the two should be made to pay for the losses caused by their actions.

“They are unable to accept the laws of this country and are putting in danger the jobs and livelihoods of decent, hardworking Queensland men and women,” Mr Macfarlane said.

“The behaviour of these activists is an assault on democracy, verging on anarchy, and they should be arrested and repay the Queensland taxpayer the full cost of their irresponsible actions.”

Queensland Resources Council chief executive Ian Macfarlane.

Ms Hush said she stopped the coal train because coal had no place in our future.

“The destruction of land and water for corporate profit is deeply exploitative, and ecologically devastating,” she said.

But McCullough Robertson strategic adviser Michael Roche said the protesters seem clueless to the fact that the coal exported from Abbot Point is almost exclusively coking coal, an essential material for making steel.

“At current prices for coking coal, every day the coal shipped out of Abbot Point would be earning Queenslanders nearly $3 million in royalties.

“State-wide, current coking coal prices translate to royalties pouring into Treasury coffers at the rate of $16 million a day.

“Every day that the Carmichael coal project is delayed, that’s another $700,000 in royalties that Queenslanders are denied. That’s enough to fund 10 new graduate teachers for a whole year.”