"Dry times come and go but one thing is for sure: there is a bigger player in Australia’s weather systems than the El Niño siblings – climate change. Our top scientists are predicting that eastern Australia is only going to get less and more intermittent rainfall as our planet heats up.
Ignoring the recent warning signs – unprecedented drought and bushfire – and carrying on as normal is to risk vast areas of Australia.
At the last federal election the Coalition weaponised the Adani coal-mine issue to portray Labor as having a tin-ear for the concerns of regional Australia. But for all the bravado, thesimple truth is that Adani will not be the saviour of regional Queensland. Far from it.
Not only will the emissions from burning Adani’s coal worsen future droughts and bushfires, the mine itself will consume vast amounts of water – a precious resource in rural Australia. That’s why it’s so important decision-making processes are independent and stick to the facts, not ideology.
Right now, federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley is considering whether to require expert scientific assessment of Adani’s massive river pipeline, through which it plans to take up to 12.5 billion litres of water from the Suttor River in Central Queensland.
The key question for the minister is whether she will apply the "water trigger", an element of our national environmental law that I was instrumental in developing during my time in Federal Parliament.
The purpose of the water trigger is to make sure the water risks of coal seam gas and large coal mining projects are comprehensively assessed. It requires mining companies to submit their plans to a panel of expert scientists who can then provide independent advice to government. The general principle is simple – when in doubt, find out.
On its face, Adani’s river pipeline demands scrutiny. Adani’s mine could lead to other large and thirsty coal mines in the Galilee Basin. For such a vast quantity of water extraction to get waved through by the minister, particularly during a time of drought, would undermine the very purpose of the water trigger and betray the communities she is duty-bound to protect.
It could also set a very bad precedent of allowing mining companies to carve up their projects into smaller pieces to escape scrutiny. Splitting off components of a mining proposal and assessing them in isolation makes a nonsense of the process. You don’t see much looking at just one piece of the jigsaw – you need to look at the whole puzzle.
Australians watched with horror earlier this year as hundreds of thousands of native fish, including Murray cod and golden perch, died at Menindee Lakes in the Darling River. While drought had a hand in this catastrophe, so too did the failure of regulators to appropriately balance the water needs of agriculture, people and the environment.
Long-term access to clean water is vital for regional Australian communities and it demands us to sustainably manage our rivers and aquifers. If big mines such as Adani aren’t subjected to expert scientific scrutiny, what guarantee do we have for the long-term security of Australia’s precious inland water sources?
As our current generation of politicians tear themselves apart trying to do not much on climate change, regional Australia is living with the harsh reality of drought and bushfire. The fact is, we need everyone – including the politicians in Canberra – to be committed to managing our climate and catchments sustainably.
If we make the right decisions today, future generations will inherit an even brighter future. Let’s hope Sussan Ley recognises this.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/this-drying-continent-cant-afford-adanis-pipeline-to-125-bi...
So here we are, allowing large mining companies to use our precious water resources to pull our precious mineral resources out of the ground.
Not to the benefit of Australians, much, but to send them overseas to coal burning industries in countires which churn out endless plastic junk and other needless items, polluting Earth's ocean's and atmoshphere.
Then Australia is held to account for contributing to climate change!
So who's running this country, anyway?
Do the speculators, industrialist capitalists have our government over a barrel? Seems like our successive Governments are having to sell the farm in order to service our (growing) foreign debt.
