You are right that the write off (the impairment of mining...

You are right that the write off (the impairment of mining assets when mining activities ended) should be reversed to the tune of around A$300m in the annual financial statements. That would give shareholders’ funds a timely substantial boost.

I wonder if in practice it would be possible to do that, and if the auditors would object to such a move.

It is rather amusing to think that these mining assets will have none, or little value, in the balance sheet, if the accounting reversal is not possible. Refurbishment costs to get the processing plants up and running again are written off in the income statement as incurred. I guess one advantage is that in the years ahead there will be no need to depreciate these valueless assets (accounting value) through the income statement.