Pauline Hanson has asked the federal government to build the rail line to open up Queensland’s Galilee coalfields instead of allowing it to be controlled by a “foreign multi-national”.
The One Nation leader and Queensland senator said she opposed the government granting the Indian conglomerate Adani a $900m concessional loan through its $5bn Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility for the rail line.
Hanson said she had pressed the case for the rail line as “a piece of national infrastructure” with the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and the minister for northern Australia, Matthew Canavan.
“This approved rail corridor will eventually connect to national line, so it should be owned by the Australian people, not a foreign multi-national,” she said.
“This railway could make the Australian people hundreds of millions of dollars a year, Adani are here to build a coalmine, not a goldmine.”
“This is a railroad that should belong to the people. We should build it, own it, control it and make sure no future government can give it away.”
Hanson’s position mirrors that outlined by Bob Katter, Queensland federal independent MP, to Turnbull in talks just after the federal election in Brisbane last year.
Hanson said she was not opposed to the Adani mine going ahead and welcomed the jobs but was also concerned about the mine’s impact on water resources.
An Adani spokesman declined to comment on Hanson’s public statement.
Adani, which gained a licence to draw down unlimited amounts of groundwater in April, has slated the Naif funding decision as the next key crossroads for its coal project.
The matter of a perceived conflict of interest involving a Naif board director, who owns a labour and machinery hire company touting its ability to work for miners in the Galilee, was set to arise in questions during Senate estimates in Canberra on Thursday.
Media outlets in India have speculated the company is under pressure to sell down its interest in the Carmichael coal project amid high debt and an Indian credit crunch.
An Adani spokesman also declined to comment on those reports.
The company has consistently said it would create 10,000 direct and indirect jobs through the project but its economic analysis revealed in court it would be 1,464 net annual jobs, which takes into account the jobs it would displace elsewhere.
