Environment officials say a Labor government could disrupt the proposed Adani coal mine by applying tough new scrutiny to the company's plan to pump billions of litres of water from a river in drought-stricken Queensland, as the issue flared on the first day of the federal election campaign.
The divisive Adani project threatens to plague Labor until election day as the party walks a delicate line between appeasing unions and voters in central Queensland, who want more coal jobs, and not angering inner-city voters who consider the mine incompatible with serious climate action.
Labor will be under pressure to further clarify its position on Adani during the election campaign.Credit: AAP
Environment Minister Melissa Price approved Adani's groundwater plan this week, meaning the mine proposal has now cleared its last federal hurdle. However, Adani is still awaiting federal sign-off on a separate plan to pump billions of litres of water from the Suttor River in drought-stricken central Queensland to feed the mine, known as the North Galilee Water Scheme.
Large coal mines must undergo strict federal environmental assessment and independent scientific scrutiny if they are likely to significantly impact a water resource, in a rule known as the water trigger.
Under the Morrison government, the Department of the Environment and Energy waived that requirement, against the advice of its own water experts, ruling that the water scheme did not directly involve coal extraction so the water trigger did not apply.
However, the department has confirmed that the next environment minister could overrule that decision under certain conditions.
These include if important new information about the impacts emerges, or there is "a substantial change in circumstances" that was not foreseen earlier.
Labor has refused to say if or how it might seek to prevent the mine from proceeding should it be elected, but the party's environment spokesman Tony Burke on Thursday said the decision not to apply the water trigger was "absurd".
"It adds to the list of areas where, on the face of it, the government has not properly applied the law. If elected, Labor will apply the law," he said.
The Australian Conservation Foundation has mounted a legal challenge to the government's water trigger decision. The organisation's anti-Adani campaigner, Christian Slattery, said the next government could gather the new information needed to apply the water trigger by ordering surveys and other studies to assess the impact of the water scheme on rivers, streams and aquifers.
The Suttor River in central Queensland, from which Adani intends to pump water to feed its Carmichael coal mine. Credit: Christine Carlisle
Labor leader Bill Shorten was grilled over Adani at his first press conference of the campaign, when he was asked to confirm reports Queensland Labor MPs were banned from publicly discussing the project.
He sought to turn attention to the government's election-announcement timing, which meant two days of Senate estimates hearings were cancelled and the CSIRO would not appear to give evidence on the contentious process surrounding its backing of Adani's groundwater plan.
"I don't think it is any particular coincidence the government went to the Governor-General today on the day the CSIRO was going to be examined about its report into the Adani mine," Mr Shorten said, accusing the Coalition of trying to avoid parliamentary scrutiny.
Labor says Ms Price was "bullied" into approving the groundwater plan by Queensland colleagues. Mr Burke on Thursday demanded the release of any correspondence from Coalition MPs to Ms Price over the decision, as well as other documents critical to the ruling. The government says the plan was approved because it met scientific requirements, and Adani will be subject to strict approval conditions.
Progressive lobby group GetUp! is ramping up its anti-coal message in the wake of this week's Adani approval. It plans to run radio ads on Melbourne radio criticising the Adani decision and is poised to launch a billboard campaign in Treasurer Josh Frydenberg's Kooyong electorate.