December 04, 2008

Queensland premier defends Wollombi coal expansion

It is reported that Ms Anna Bligh Premier of Queensland has defended her government's decision to protect the expansion of Xstrata's Wollombi coal operations in central Queensland.

Ms Bligh recently said that “While she accepted there would be opposition to the new laws, they would be introduced to protect jobs and the investment made by Xstrata. It is an unusual decision by government and certainly not one you would expect to see happen very often.”


Ms Bligh said this mine received the go ahead in perfectly legal circumstances and the appeal yesterday was on a technical procedural ground and not about the substance of the environmental management, She said “I am not prepared to see 190 workers and their families put at risk or the USD 70 million worth of investment put at risk for a matter which might leave a question mark for anything up to 12 months dragging through the courts."

The new laws follow overturning of a Land and Resources Tribunal decision that had allowed the mining company to expand Wollombi without any conditions to offset greenhouse emissions. The government granted the extension of Xstrata's open cut coal mine near Moranbah earlier this year after the Land and Resources Tribunal approved stringent environmental conditions. The tribunal rejected additional conditions that the Queensland Conservation Council sought to have imposed which forced Xstrata to avoid cut or offset a proportion of its greenhouse gas emissions. The QCC appealed the tribunal's decision and the Court of Appeal on Friday upheld the green group's objections, deciding to send the matter back to the Land Court for rehearing.