FEDERAL Environment Minister Tony Burke has "stopped the clock" on approving Gina Rinehart's proposed giant $6.4 billion Alpha coal mine in Queensland's Galilee Basin because of the "shambolic" actions of the Newman government.
In a dramatic escalation of the stoush between the federal and Queensland governments over the project's approvals, Mr Burke this morning declared he could not trust the state.
"I don't have the level of trust in the Queensland government that I wish I had," Mr Burke said in Canberra this morning.
"I cannot trust them with Queensland jobs; I cannot trust them with the Great Barrier Reef."
Mr Burke said he would suspend the federal government's bilateral agreement with Queensland on streamlining environmental approvals, unless the Premier Campbell Newman's government convinced him not to.
The conflict flows from the Queensland Coordinator-General's conditional approval last week for the mine, which is part-owned by Indian conglomerate GVK.
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The Australian
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