Newsroom

May 24, 2024

It’s possibly the first rational and sensible decision to come out of the Queensland Department of Environment, Science and Innovation (DESI) in years, but reading that Glencore have been denied permission to pollute our pristine water is music to my ears, Katter’s Australian Party Leader and Member for Traeger, Robbie Katter has said.

Glencore subsidiary Carbon Transport and Storage Corporation (CTSCo) have failed in their bit to pump industrial waste from their coal fired power stations into the Great Artesian Basin.

“I am proud to have stood beside the agriculture groups and the communities and industries that they represent to oppose the insane prospect that the industrial waste could be pumped into the water supply that sustains inland Queensland, and indeed inland Australia,” the member for Traeger said.

“The reality remains that this should not have to be a war fought by farmers and Inland Australia – it is a fundamental failure and inditement on the federal and state governments.

“Just because Glencore have been denied the opportunity to profit from pumping waste into our water doesn’t mean that others will also be denied – and we know there are other corporate companies wanting to use our perverse ‘climate change’ polices to profit.

“The Federal LNP were the ones who let this slide through the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act processes in 2022, and it is only through intense and costly campaigning that the State Labor Government’s department has told Glencore to keep out.

“Both the Federal and State Parliaments must now immediately legislate to protect the Great Artesian Basin from any future proposals to gain Carbon Credits from pumping waste into our water supply.

“Climate change policy has yet again been shown to be promoting wildly dangerous and perverse consequences.

“If the LNP here in Queensland had any ‘National’ left in them they would have been strident supporters of Inland Queensland and stood beside me in this fight – yet again, they sit silent on the sideline, without action, watching Labor willing to decimate yet more of rural Queensland,” Mr Katter said.