Shenhua defends NSW mine compensation
The head of Chinese coalminer Shenhua has defended the $262m extracted from the NSW government.
The head of Chinese state-owned coalminer Shenhua has defended the $262 million extracted from the NSW government in a deal that will see the company proceed with its $1.2 billion Watermark mine on the Liverpool Plains in the northwest slopes of the state but restrict it to ridge areas.
Shenhua Australia chairman Liu Xiang yesterday told The Australian that the compensation was justified for the loss of half the area covered by its original exploration licence, with the renewed licence excluding the agriculturally rich black-soil plains sections.
“Shenhua paid $300 million in the year 2008 for … the area of 195 square kilometres,” Mr Liu said, referring to the decision that year by former Labor minister Ian Macdonald to grant the original exploration licence.
“The partial removal of the (exploration licence) zone as a result of the subsequent government policy change should correlate with the partial refunding of what Shenhua once paid accordingly.”
Contrary to suggestions by some observers that the halving of its exploration licence area could lead Shenhua to abandon the Watermark project as having become unviable, Mr Liu insisted it would proceed to the next stage.
“The company is now working on the definitive design of the project,” Mr Liu said.
He said he was not in a position to specify just when Shenhua would apply for a mining licence — the final step in the approval process required for it to execute its plan to dig three open-pit coalmines in the ridge areas.
“The time to apply for the mining licence is dependent on the outcome of the design feasibility study,” Mr Liu said.
The state government’s announcement of the deal on Wednesday, which it argues strikes a balance between the need to protect the food bowl while still allowing an economic boost with 600 jobs in the state’s northeast, has only increased the ire of farming and green groups, along with that of radio shock jock Alan Jones.
In an attack on Premier Gladys Berejiklian in an interview on 2GB radio yesterday, Jones said her decision to not cancel the mining giant’s licence entirely meant she had “put her head in a noose” that would be tightened when the “truckies and farmers start”.
“We looked at every legal option we had,” Ms Berejiklian told Jones.
Yesterday, the state opposition’s resources spokesman, Adam Searle, continued Labor’s attack on the government, saying that the $262m compensation was “scandalous” and not required under law since Shenhua’s exploration licence had expired in October.
Mr Searle challenged the government to make public the legal advice that it claims justified the compensation.
Energy Minister Don Harwin responded that the advice was “cabinet in confidence”.
The activist group GetUp! yesterday vowed to continue to campaign against Shenhua.
“The NSW government had the chance to put an end to a coalmine on this prime agricultural land and instead it’s paid them $262m to go ahead and mine,” GetUp! climate campaigner Sam Regester said.
Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce yesterday said “It’s very good that prime agricultural land is protected” through the deal, but he emphasised the insistence by Mr Harwin that he had still not decided whether to grant final mining approval.
The Nationals MP for the state seat of Barwon, Kevin Humphries, said he was happy the deal had gone through.
“It’s been a protracted negotiation done with proper respect for agriculture and respect for mining,” Mr Humphries said.
“Alan Jones is ill-informed and appears to have based his opinion around emotion.”
Additional reporting: Stephen Fitzpatrick, Sam Buckingham-Jones