Target $18.72, page-10935

AUST today, extract:
The Queensland government has been locked in a secret battle with coalmining giant Adani for years, forcing the company to pay full royalties upfront instead of the deferral deal locked in by Annastacia Palaszczuk.
Relations between the mining giant and the Labor government had deteriorated so significantly that in the lead-up to last month’s state election, then-treasurer Cameron Dick ordered the dispute into closed-door Supreme Court hearings in an effort to stop Adani getting access to cabinet-in-confidence correspondence.
The Australian can reveal David Crisafulli and his Liberal National Party government are now saddled with trying to resolve the stoush – secret until now – at a time when the coal industry is ramping up pressure on the new administration to relax Labor’s royalties regime.
Indian-owned Adani Mining Pty Ltd, now trading as Bravus Mining and Resources, operates the controversial Carmichael coalmine in central Queensland’s Galilee Basin, originally touted as Australia’s largest coalmine.
Ahead of the October 2020 election, Ms Palaszczuk and Mr Dick signed a royalties deferral deal with Adani, allowing the company to avoid paying royalties for an unspecified number of years, before requiring it to pay all outstanding tax plus interest at some unknown date in the future.
Since Adani shipped its first coal in June 2021, it has paid more than $148m in royalties direct to the Queensland government.
The deferral has not occurred.
The Australian understands Queensland Treasury claims Adani is breaching the terms of the deal, partly by allegedly failing to take out business continuity insurance for its operations, to rebuild the mine if it is destroyed by a natural disaster.
That allegation is strongly denied by Adani, which is understood to have forced the dispute into private arbitration.
When the company asked for the government to give the arbitrator confidential correspondence involving Mr Dick and relating to cabinet matters, the Labor government applied to the Supreme Court for an intervention.
The legal move occurred during the caretaker period prior to the October 26 election.
The matter is so secret that it does not appear on the public record of civil cases filed in Queensland.
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