Carmichael coal for NQ this Christmas

22 DECEMBER 2015: NORTH Queensland received coal for Christmas this morning and is looking forward to a stocking full of jobs in the new year after the Federal Government approved the Abbot Point port expansion. The good news will make Christmas a little more enjoyable for a region that has had a tough year. This project has now cleared all Federal Government hurdles for both the mine itself and the port expansion. What the region really needed was to see this light at the end of the tunnel and this news will inject confidence back into the economy. Environment Minister, Greg Hunt, issued the Federal Government approval for the Abbot Point expansion today with a range of strict conditions, including how dredging could take place, containment measures for dredged material, and a comprehensive dredge management plan. The approval also came with conditions regarding other environmental management and an offset management strategy. The project’s proponents must submit an Offset Management Strategy to the minister prior to undertaking dredging activities. This is to ensure that there is a net improvement in water quality in the wider region. Proponents need to show how they will achieve a reduction in sediment entering the marine environment from the Burdekin River and/or Don River catchments equal to 150 per cent of the fine sediment returned to the marine environment as a result of dredging. This is a win for jobs, a win for the economy, and a win for the environment and water quality. I acknowledge that extreme green groups will continue a campaign of frivolous law suits in a bid to stop the project but they are grasping at straws. The anti-mining groups are starting to sound a little desperate because their claims get more and more ridiculous. Today, they are out there telling people that coal ships will "plough through the reef" because they have run out of plausible arguments. The reality is that there are dedicated shipping channels that these coal ships use and they often utilise expert Australian reef pilots to assist them. The extreme greens are claiming emissions from burning Carmichael mine coal will cause global warming but they refuse to acknowledge that the alternative would be more emissions produced by burning lower quality coal from Indonesia. The community understands the importance of jobs and the economy and are starting to see the anti-coal lobby for what it really is – anti-capitalism and anti-jobs.See the fact sheet here for information on 29 of the strictest conditions in Australian history.