Clive’s piggyback bid on the road to Galilee

Clive Palmer’s Waratah Coal is trying to piggyback on Adani’s fast-tracked path into the Galilee Basin.

Clive Palmer spent $60 million on the federal election but came up empty-handed. Now he’s turning his attention back to more lucrative enterprises. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Clive Palmer’s Waratah Coal is trying to piggyback on Adani’s fast-tracked path into the Galilee Basin, claiming to have lobbied the Queensland government for intervention to progress its massive coal mine proposal as well.

The businessman appears to have seized on Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s about-face on Adani’s Galilee Basin coal project last week, with Waratah Coal saying it had contacted Ms Palaszczuk and the government to press for action.

“The company has been communicating with the Premier and the Queensland government for their assistance to progress the ­Galilee Coal Project,” a Waratah Coal spokesman said.

“The Galilee Coal Project being proposed by Waratah Coal looks to mine coal through highly efficient long-wall mining, co-existing with existing grazing stakeholders, and minimising surface disturbance.”

A spokesman for the Premier last night confirmed Waratah Coal had met with officials from the state Department of Environment and Science about the project.

Waratah Coal yesterday said it would use a “slurry pipeline” to take coal hundreds of kilometres to the port at Gladstone, after saying for years it would need a rail line to the Abbot Point port, at Bowen.

Mr Palmer spectacularly fell out with his former political allies the Liberal National Party in 2012, after the Newman government backed his mining rival GVK Hancock’s plan for a Galilee Basin rail line instead of Waratah Coal’s.

This week’s meeting came just days after Mr Palmer’s failed bid to secure a Queensland Senate spot at the May 18 federal election.

The businessman is purported to have spent more than $60 million on the campaign for his United Australia Party, which Mr Palmer later boasted helped the Coalition retain government through anti-Labor advertising and a preference deal with the Coalition.

The impasse over Indian miner Adani’s Carmichael coalmine and rail line proposal in the Galilee Basin, in central Queensland, was blamed for Labor’s plunging primary vote in Queensland at the federal election, prompting a “wake-up call” for Ms Palaszczuk.

Last week, she ordered her own Environment Department into ­crisis talks with Adani and the state Co-ordinator-General to sort out environmental approval deadlines, which could see the project start construction in three weeks if it gets the green light.

Waratah Coal is one of several mining companies with coal tenements in the nascent resources basin waiting on the outcome of Adani’s project.

Last week, a $6.7 billion Chinese coalmine proposal next to the Carmichael site was put on ice after MacMines decided not to pursue leases.

Mr Palmer’s project, which he says would be much larger than Adani’s $2bn operation, has not progressed as far as Adani’s, despite him lodging the original application back in 2008.

In 2013, it received conditional state Co-ordinator-General approval of its environmental impact statement, and last year the federal government said a fresh application by Waratah Coal needed ­approval under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act before it could start.

Queensland Resources Council chief executive Ian Macfarlane said if Adani were approved, it would potentially open up the Galilee Basin to other companies.

“You’ll be in a situation where other proponents have an easier road — I don’t mean less stringent — but less processes they have to go through because all the baseline environmental information will be compiled,” Mr Macfarlane said.

Australian Conservation Foundation campaigner Christian Slattery said “cracking open an entire new coal basin” would help “turbocharge climate change”.