‘Climate aware’ NAB defends Newcastle port backing

National Australia Bank chief executive Ross McEwan has defended the lender’s support for the Port of Newcastle.

NAB chief executive Ross McEwan. Picture: Aaron Francis

National Australia Bank chief executive Ross McEwan has defended the lender’s support for the Port of Newcastle, saying financial institutions must not “walk away” from companies in the march to net-zero emissions.

Amid pressure from activist shareholder groups after The Australian revealed NAB would take a lead role in refinancing the port’s $888m in external loans after ANZ abandoned the coal export terminal facility, Mr McEwan said the bank was taking climate emissions seriously.

The bank chief, who has adopted an ambitious climate change strategy, said “our view was that these companies are taking every effort to become far more conscious of emissions and we should be in there supporting rather than just walking away from them”.

Mr McEwan said the bank was committed to transitioning businesses like the Port of Newcastle to a “better place on the climate situation”.

“So it’s around transitioning businesses and that’s what we’re doing right across our portfolio of companies,” he told 3AW radio.

Outlining NAB’s $10bn finance support for renewable energy projects compared with $700m in coal, Mr McEwan said the bank was at the “forefront” of accelerating “new industries (and) new ways of creating energy”.

“So it’s a big difference in where we have been putting the investors’ money and where we’ve been lending. That transition is already starting to happen for this bank and for Australia.”

The ANZ decision to exit its lending support after previously leading the Port of Newcastle’s 2018 refinancing sparked a backlash from Nationals MPs and the resources sector.

The ANZ last year released the most ambitious net-zero emissions action plan of the big four banks, adopting climate change as a condition of lending.

Anthony Albanese on Tuesday hit back at criticism of ANZ, saying it was a “commercial decision”.

“This is a government that has always been prepared to attack business when they don’t like decisions that business have made, attack workers each and every day,” the Opposition Leader said.

“These are commercial decisions. Newcastle Port plays a very important role in our national economy. I’m a big supporter of our port structures.”

Hunter MP Joel Fitzgibbon said the port, which supports 9000 jobs and contributes $1.5bn to GDP, was “critical to the Hunter economy and local jobs”.

“I’m not the least bit concerned if ANZ walks away because the port is a profitable operation. If they don’t fund it, someone not so exposed to shareholder activism will,” he said.

Mr Fitzgibbon attacked the Nat­ionals, who are pushing to exclude agriculture and trade-­exposed sectors from the govern­ment’s net-zero emissions goals, over their weaponising of the “climate wars”.

“(They) will do anything they can to keep it going,” he said.

Minerals Council of Australia chief executive Tania Constable said the negative impact of denying access to competitive finance for the resources sector would be “profound” for the national economy and regional communities.

The MCA chief, who represents companies including BHP, Glencore and Rio Tinto, said “miners, innovators, financiers and manufacturers should be working together to deliver real emissions reductions while supporting regional communities”.

Resources Minister Keith Pitt said “You have to question what’s happened to rational economic thinking when an organisation like the Port of Newcastle falls victim to corporate activism”.

NSW Energy Minister Matt Kean, whose government is holding back Port of Newcastle diversification plans to develop an automated container terminal, said it was the role of federal government to manage risks to the economy, not private companies.