AUST Business today (extract):
COAL INDUSTRY BLASTS ‘INTOLERABLE’ LAWFARE
Brad Thompson
Coal industry leaders have blasted the use of taxpayer funds to help with various court cases that cost New Hope Corporation more than a $100m to defend, before the company ultimately secured victory in the fight to expand a Queensland mine.
Coal Australia chief executive Stuart Bocking said the situation faced by New Hope was “intolerable” and sent a terrible message about investment in the nation’s resources industry.
Mr Bocking said some activist groups didn’t care whether they eventually won or lost court cases, as long as they were able to cause long delays and discourage investment.
He said governments and government departments that put mining companies through exhaustive approvals needed to step up in court in defence of projects challenged by activist groups.
“One of problems we face now is that many of these activist groups don’t really care whether they win, lose or draw. What emboldens them, what activates them, is delaying these projects and putting proponents to enormous costs, all in the hope that eventually shareholders, investors, funders get cold feet and decide this is all too difficult,” he said.
Mr Bocking said it was a credit to New Hope that it had finally secured victory in the fight to expand the New Acland thermal coal mine in the Bowen Basin, but it had at a huge cost because of the lawfare waged against the company.
“It (lawfare) sends a terrible message more broadly about the state of the resources sector in terms of development approvals, being able to defend those approvals, and what sort of processes proponents and mining companies are put through to be able to ultimately validate those approvals,” he said.
Mr Bocking took aim at the taxpayer-funded Environmental Defenders Office over its role in the New Acland dispute, which raged through multiple courts for more than a decade and finally ended this week when the Oakey Coal Action Alliance (OCAA) withdrew an appeal against a water licence for the mine.
“We’ve got a perverse situation here where you’ve got government departments within governments of the day granting a whole range of approvals and licences and other things after having put proponents rightly through a very exhaustive process,” he said.
“But then, bizarrely, we’ve got another department or branch of government providing funding to some of these activist groups to effectively pull that valid decision apart.”
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