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Man locks himself to Qld mine machinery

Marty SilkAAP
A man has locked himself to a concrete batching plant on a Bravus building site.
Camera IconA man has locked himself to a concrete batching plant on a Bravus building site.

A man has locked himself to machinery in an environmental protest at a railway construction site of the Carmichael coalmine in central Queensland.

Barney Jackson used a steel elbow lock to attach himself to a concrete batching plant near Belyando on Friday morning.

The $2 billion mine is being built by Indian-owned Bravus Mining and Resources, formerly known as Adani Australia.

The company is building its 10 million tonne-a-year capacity thermal coalmine in the Galilee Basin, which could be expanded to six times that size.

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Bravus is also building the rail line that will be opened to other companies if it gets the tick of approval to mine coal in the region.

Mr Jackson strung out a banner with the words "Water is Life" on it in protest against the company's water extraction rights.

"I grew up on Magnetic Island on the Great Barrier Reef and I've seen the damage and pressures that are being put on the reef, something that the Adani coal mine will exacerbate," he said in a statement.

"If anything is sacred; it's water. If there is no water we all die, humans included. Water is life says it all".

"Growing up in north Queensland where water is often very scarce, Adani having a licence to take unlimited amounts of water makes me very concerned."

Bravus said work was continuing on the site despite Mr Jackson's protest, which it noted was more than 300km inland from the Great Barrier Reef.

Bravus said its project had to comply with Queensland environmental regulations.

"Which means water cannot run off from our mining or construction areas or otherwise impact on water quality," a spokesperson told AAP in a statement.

The Indian company changed its name to Bravus from Adani Australia on Thursday.

Chief executive David Boshoff said after 10 years of local operations and with construction on the Carmichael mine underway, it was time for Adani to have its own Australian brand.

"We are proud to be a dedicated Australian company that is part of the north Queensland community," he said in a statement.

"We will continue to stand up and deliver for the good of our community, no matter how courageous it requires us to be, and Bravus, our new name, reflects this intent."

Opponents of the mine were quick to point out the Latin word "bravus" did not mean courageous or brave.

Greenpeace Australia Pacific head of research Nikola Casule said bravus actually meant vulgar in Latin and was based on the words barbarus or barbarian.

"A word with its roots in 'barbarian' is fitting for a company whose proposed Carmichael mega-mine would accelerate the global warming crisis that threatens our own, human civilisation's life on planet earth," Dr Casule said.

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