Adani fined for land-clearing failure
Adani has been fined $20,000 for failing to properly declare the extent of land clearing on its site in the Galilee Basin.
Mining giant Adani has been fined $20,000 for failing to properly declare to the Queensland Government the extent of land clearing on its site in the Galilee Basin.
The company will also pay about $6000 in legal and investigative costs but avoided having a criminal conviction recorded after a sentencing hearing in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on Thursday morning.
Adani pleaded guilty to the charge of providing misleading documents in its 2017-18 Annual return to the environment regulator.
The company blamed an “administrative error” for failing to declare that 5.8 hectares of land had been at least partially cleared prior to the reporting period.
Magistrate Stephen Courtney said the land clearing itself was not illegal as the company had authority to disrupt more than 200ha of land at the central Queensland coal mine site.
But the failure to properly declare the clearing of 5.8 hectares of land in late 2017 was illegal, he said.
He said the size of the company meant it should have been aware of the discrepancy.
The court heard Adani had full approval to clear the land and that the clearing did not cause any environmental harm.
The issue was brought to the Environment Department’s attention in September 2018 by the advocacy group Coast and Country and the Environmental Defenders Office.
Magistrate Courtney said Adani was a “good corporate citizen” with no prior criminal convictions.
Anti-Adani activists who attended the hearing were deflated after the judgment. “Well that was disappointing,” one remarked outside the courtroom.
Prosecutor Stephen Keim said the error pointed to a “systemic failure” within the company and asked for Adani to be fined $25,000 out of a possible $2.8 million.
Defence barrister Jeffrey Hunter said his client accepted its mistake but pointed out there were no adverse consequences from the failure to report the clearing, which would have been covered in the following year’s return.
“The risk from the misleading information was precisely zero,” he said.
“There was no risk of environmental harm, nor was there any risk to the safety or health of any individual.
“It’s hard to see what the department would have done differently if it was provided with the information.”
In a statement released shortly after the hearing, an Adani Mining spokeswoman reiterated that no conviction would be recorded and that its breach was due to an “administrative error”.
“There was no environmental harm, all relevant works were legal, and fully complied with our project conditions,” the spokeswoman said.
“We took responsibility for the administrative error at the time and introduced improvements to internal processes when it was discovered in 2018 and reported by us, to ensure paperwork errors of this nature are avoided in the future.
“We are pleased this matter is now resolved.”
Green groups were critical of the fine and lack of criminal conviction.
Australian Conservation Foundation campaigner Christian Slattery said the “small” fine would not act as a deterrent.
The Environmental Defenders Office and advocacy group Coast and Country released a joint statement, calling on the Queensland Government to revoke Adani’s right to mine.
“The fact a conviction was not recorded does not obscure the fact Adani has been convicted of a criminal offence for the first time in Australia,” the statement said.
Hours prior to the sentence being handed down, the Greens pre-emptively called on Adani to be stripped of its Galilee Basin Environmental Authority because of a “criminal conviction”.
“A criminal conviction is a legal trigger for the Federal Government to review and revoke Adani’s approval,” Greens Senate Leader Larissa Waters said.
“Adani will be criminally convicted today, yet it is still in line for public subsidies.”
