Let Them Eat Coal

Let Them Eat Coal

Four hours north of Sydney, the Liverpool Plains have become the latest badly chosen battleground for an inept and bullying state government.

Wielding ‘Section 3A’ development powers, the Rees government is encamped with BHP. Under the state government’s powers concerning large projects, BHP may well benefit from an accelerated approvals process. In 2006, the company paid the state government $99 million for a license to conduct coal exploration in the region’s central Caroona Basin. The company has been actively exploring the area since then for its potential to deliver a half-billion tonne coalmine.

Minister for Mineral Resources and State Development Ian McDonald has openly spruiked the proposed project and it’s potential to deliver 1000 mining jobs and a possible $1 billion in rail infrastructure.

Fighting the goliath of Big Coal and unrepresentative government are the farmers and local residents of the Caroona Coal Action Group (CCAG) and their unlikely allies – including federal Labor senator, Doug Cameron, and The Greens, particularly Bob Brown and Lee Rhiannon.

CCAG Chairman Doug Hendy sees the alliance between farmers and Green politicians as a new permutation, but one likely to be repeated as climate concerns deepen and traditional political parties fall further behind community concerns.

Central to the ongoing conflict is the CCAG’s contention that a whole-of-catchment study of the region’s groundwater systems must be completed before any determination can be made. The plains are agriculturally rich, producing livestock and a variety of crops at a level 40 per cent beyond most Australian farmlands according to CCAG.

The group maintains that longwall and open pit coalmining would threaten the area’s values as an established agricultural community and national food bowl, with the joint risks of cracked, emptied aquifers and polluted waterways.

In the same week that the federal budget dominated news alongside rumours of a growing rift between PM Kevin Rudd and Premier Nathan Rees, a real divide was opened between federal and state governments. Federal Labor Senator Doug Cameron spoke of Caroona as a matter of public interest.

He criticized the awarding by the state government of neighbouring exploration licenses to BHP and China’s Shenhua Group, who have paid the state government $300 million for their permit.

Cameron said “these licences were granted prior to a comprehensive study being undertaken to gauge the impact such activity would have on groundwater and the aquifers that connect to the Murray-Darling Basin. This is where the problem lies, and it is a problem that the people of Caroona are demanding be addressed.”

As well as identifying concerns about climate change and resource scarcity as issues given insufficient consideration by the NSW government in this matter, Cameron went on to identify the pressing issue for CCAG. “The farmers are taking time out of their labour intensive schedules to form a blockade against BHP coming onto their private properties before an independent water study is commissioned.”

CCAG are calling for $8 million for such a study to be completed. The federal government has contributed $1.5 million. Neither BHP nor Premier Rees have yet been similarly forthcoming.

Refusing to move their blockade and allow BHP exploratory access to private properties, CCAG have taken the matter to the NSW Mining Warden. Though appointed by the state, the Warden is an independent adjudicator and will be making a final decision regarding the obligations of farmers, BHP and the government within a matter of weeks.

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