It was a red letter day for Townsville and regional Queensland on 13 June 2019, after almost a decade since the opportunity was first presented to our community, the Adani Carmichael Mine could finally get on with the job. It was on this day that Adani Mining received advice from the Queensland Government’s Department of Environment and Science that the Carmichael Mine's Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems Management Plan had been finalised and approved. That signalled the end of the project's approval process and the beginning of a new era for regional Queensland.
Across the past eight years, our community's position on this project has not wavered. We have remained committed to seeing this opportunity through to usher in a new era for regional Queensland, creating jobs and economic opportunities today, tomorrow, and for decades to come. Townsville is the proud home of the Adani Regional Headquarters, providing hundreds of local jobs, and the Townsville Airport serves as one of two FIFO hubs for the Carmichael Project.
Work is well underway on the Carmichael Mine site, and as of early 2020 more than $1 billion in contracts had been signed for the construction of the Carmichael Mine and Rail project. The company estimates generating up to 1,500 direct jobs at the peak of construction and supporting thousands of indirect jobs. The Carmichael Mine is located in the North Galilee Basin, more than 300 kilometres from the Queensland coastline and approximately 160kms north-west of Clermont in regional Queensland.
This decision and efforts to get the rest of the Galilee projects on track will help restore Queensland's investment certainty, and that projects are approved on merit, and not determined by the noise of anti-business activists. The Carmichael Mine is one of many important projects that is required to build a strong future for jobs in Queensland, and importantly North Queensland at a time so desperately needed.
