Bankrupt ‘boganaire’ Nathan Tinkler now battlers’ best friend
Nathan Tinkler has backed the Drayton South coal mine against the objections of the area’s famous horse studs.
Former coal billionaire, now bankrupt, Nathan Tinkler was claiming to be the battlers’ friend when he stood up in a packed conservatorium in Muswellbrook yesterday to back the Drayton South coal mine against the objections of the NSW Hunter Valley’s famous horse studs.
But what he didn’t mention was that success for Anglo American’s Drayton South project could provide the template for similar development of the nearby Dartbrook mine, which would further boost the value of a Tinkler family investment that has already surged from $6.6 million to more than $40m over the past year.
There has also been speculation that Anglo American, which is seeking to divest its coal assets, would sell the approved Drayton South mine to Australia Pacific Coal. APC bought the nearby Dartbrook mine from Anglo last year.
Mr Tinkler and his family hold a 38.7 per cent stake in APC.
Drayton South mine would operate less than a kilometre from the prestigious Hunter Valley stud farms
Mr Tinkler, however, insists his campaign is only about doing what is right for the people of the Hunter.
“I have nothing to do with Drayton,” he told The Australian. “I used to play footy with one of the guys employed in the area, and now they don’t have a f. king job.
“It’s cost 500 families their jobs and that’s not right. The mine should be approved and it should go ahead.”
Mr Tinkler, who earned the nickname of “the boganaire” during his rise as he famously spent lavish funds on sporting teams, private aircraft and the biggest thoroughbred racing stable in the country, paints the battle between coal and thoroughbreds in the Hunter as a clash of classes. On the one hand, he says, there are the foreigners and billionaires who pay no tax, and then there are the miners struggling for work.
His time in racing, he says, gave him a first-hand look at the “merry-go-round of scandal” that pervades the thoroughbred business now trying to squeeze the coal industry out of the valley.
But for thoroughbred breeders in the room, Mr Tinkler’s new role as coal crusader and racing whistleblower prompted a mixture of bemusement and anger, given the financial pain inflicted on many smaller creditors when his Patinack Farm racing empire faltered.
Henry Plumptre, the managing director of major horse stud Godolphin, noted Mr Tinkler caused huge damage in the Hunter region before he declared bankruptcy earlier this year.
“If you research his history in racing, he came into racing in 2008, he spent $200-$300 million for the next four years and was a fantastic investor,” he said. “If you said to us, do you like losing people like that? Well of course not, but he made his own bed. We were sad to see him go, but the collateral damage he caused across this region was just massive.”
Godolphin and Coolmore stud farms have argued their proximity to the proposed mine would “fatally disrupt” their operations and force them to move.
“There has never been a threat to Coolmore Australia that comes close to the threat of Drayton South,” Ken Barry, chairman of the stud’s advisory board, said.
“Not equine influenza, not drought, not the floods of 2007, not fire, not the global financial crisis.”
GRAPHIC: The man and his money
The concern for working people shown by Mr Tinkler yesterday is despite him leaving more than $200m owing to various creditors, including $6m to retail billionaire Gerry Harvey, and the Australian Taxation Office.
His bankruptcy trustee has since been trying to find assets owned by Mr Tinkler that can be liquidated to meet those remaining debts. However the Tinkler family’s stake in APC appears to be all but out of reach to creditors.
The APC stake is primarily held by his parents, his ex-wife Rebecca and the family of his new partner Jodie Van Gilst. A sliver of the shares is owned by Mr Tinkler’s Singapore-based Bentley Resources.
Mr Tinkler denied having any say over the APC shares held by his family.
“My family put up money so I could get a job and contribute to Dartbrook,” he said.
“That was their funds, their interest, their shareholdings, it had nothing to do with me.
“Now that I’m not there I don’t expect they’ll hold them much longer but that’s an issue for them.”
This is the fourth time a proposal to develop Drayton South mine has come before the Planning Assessment Commission and it has been rejected the three previous occasions
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