Coal plans fire Minister's ire

News of the NSW government’s approval late last week for the Shenhua Watermark coal project at Breeza, in the ridge country above the black soil of the Liverpool Plains, sparked a heated response from critics.

The Lock The Gate Alliance (LTG) warned the NSW Planning and Assessment Commission’s approval would give Chinese mining company Shenhua the capacity to extract 10 million tonnes of coal a year in the area.

LTG said the mine was also adjacent to some of the most productive agricultural soils in the State and was “fiercely opposed by the local farming community, who have previously turned out in large numbers to protest against the proposal”.

One of the mine’s biggest critics and political lobbyist Tim Duddy from the Caroona Coal Action Group warned the project approval signalled “the end of agriculture”.

Speaking to ABC Radio, Mr Duddy also warned: “Someone will lose it because of this and something awful will happen”.

“I can’t imagine what this will do to the community,” he said.

“People are so tired in this place and people are so angry about these processes that we have participated in for the last eight years, in good faith that our assets would be protected, and clearly with what the Planning Assessment Commission has signed they are not and will not be.”

In light of the comments, Mr Joyce expressed concerns about a repeat of the tragic events of July last year when 79-year-old farmer, Ian Robert Turnbull, was charged with the murder of NSW Environment and Heritage compliance officer Glen Turner.

The shocking incident came about after a long-running land-clearing dispute over Mr Turnbull’s property north of Moree in northern NSW.

The Agriculture Minister urged caution and commonsense, saying while he understood the emotion behind the issue, “you can’t take the law into your own hands; it doesn’t work like that".

Referring to Mr Turner's death, Mr Joyce said: “There was no excuse; even though people had high emotions about tree clearing you’ve got to stay within the law”.

Proponents of the Shenhua development estimate the project will deliver more than $900 million in economic benefits, 900 local jobs, and will also generate about $1.5 billion in State government royalties over its 30-year lifespan.

Mr Joyce said while he wasn’t opposed to mining per se, from the outset he had not agreed with mining on the Breeza Plain.

He said he’d been concerned about the Shenhua project’s potential impacts on water capacity and drawdown. He had made contact with the person responsible for the project’s hydrology study and said he would endeavour to gain as much information as he could about hydrological aspects of the project to “try and put up a cogent argument as to why it’s not correct”.

Although the federal responsibility to intervene on the project was “limited” he had contacted Environment Minister Greg Hunt to continue talks about potential water impacts, but stressed the approval was “not a decision made in Canberra”.

Mr Joyce said the Breeza Plains was “a precious asset” but added the mine’s exploration licence should not have been granted by the previous NSW Labor government.

“If they get it wrong, if we lose the aquifer that will be devastating,” he said.

“From my bare emotion, I just don’t like the idea of a big mine in the middle of the Breeza Plains. I think it’s an anathema.”

Mr Joyce also said while said federal responsibility for water was in Mr Hunt’s jurisdiction, he wished it was in his ministerial portfolio of Agriculture - “in which case this would be a very short conversation”.

“This is the best land in Australia and it’s not a case that we don’t have mines in the area, we do, we’ve got them at Gunnedah, we’ve got them at Kahlua, we’ve got them at Werris Creek.

“This is a massive mine and therefore if we get it wrong it’ll have massive consequences - and the issue is it’s also the water supply, not only for the irrigators but all the way down to Gunnedah.”