SOUTHERN Moreton Bay Island residents have staged an Adani coal mine protest outside the Commonwealth Bank Cleveland branch.
The newly-formed SMBI #Stop Adani group is fighting the proposal to build the world’s largest coal mine in the Galilee Basin in central Queensland.
The group wants to make sure the bank does not fund the mine.
Spokesperson Sue Goodrick said if built, the mine would eventually cover about 29,000 hectares.
She said protesters gave the bank a written request to rule out funding the mine as well as handing out information and collecting signatures for petitions to be presented to state and federal politicians.
“Other banks have ruled out giving Adani the $20 billion it needs to build the mine,’’ she said.
“Yet even though the mine is widely considered to be a poor investment because of coal’s declining market, the Commonwealth Bank has not yet ruled out funding it.
“If the mine goes broke as some experts predict, it will be us taxpayers who have to pay out the billions to clean up the mess.’’
The rally was part of nationwide protests being rolled out to fight the mine.
Ms Goodrick said burning the billions of tonnes of coal from the mine was predicted to contribute to killing the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef through global and ocean warming.
“Yet both the federal and state governments are pushing the idea,’’ she said. “They have even agreed to fund the railway needed to get the coal to the coast to the tune of $1 billion.
“A few weeks ago we had the spectacle of (Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk) accompanied by several Queensland mayors followed by our prime minister (Malcolm Turnbull) going cap in hand to India to visit Mr Adani.
“We taxpayers are funding this.’’
Ms Goodrick said if governments were concerned about creating jobs in regional Queensland, why were they not encouraging renewable projects instead?
She said Adani had a poor environmental record, including a major spill off Mumbai in 2011 and poisoning a river in Zambia.
”If the government wants jobs for central Queensland, they should think about protecting the 70,000 reef-related tourism jobs before the few hundred jobs from this mine,’’ Ms Goodrick said.
The SMBI #Stop Adani group is open to all Redlanders via its Facebook page.