Hogsback won’t dwell on the State of Origin fiasco, except to say the Maroons are the NRL brains trust, and some of the slow-witted Blues players have to learn there are two halves to a game and you’re expected to play in both of them.
The situation regarding coal in the Premier State is almost as dire as that of NRL.
NSW has now paid $482 million in 12 months when you add the Watermark decisions with the government policy reversal last year on granting a licence to BHP Billiton’s Caroona project, which also sits in NSW’s Liverpool Plains.
Then there is the state government paying Metgasco $25 million to pull out of its Bentley coal seam gas project in the North Coast, and former Premier Barrie O’Farrell’s unilateral decision to revoke the licence for NuCoal Resources’ Doyles Creek mine in the Hunter Valley.
NSW is earning a bad reputation for not sticking by its own decisions and policies. Sydney’s Macquarie Street is fast emerging as the jelly back capital of the southern hemisphere.
Hogsback thought the role of governments was to make decisions, not to reverse them and then get everyone else to pay because they changed their mind.
There have been a few complaints by well-heeled farmers and their mates on talk-back radio about the effects of mining on their precious black soils in the Liverpool Plains.
The government has obviously been swayed by this in making its Watermark payout.
It also recently presided over a decision to deny Anglo American the right to extend its Drayton coal mine in the Hunter Valley because of complaints from nearby millionaire horse stud owners.
Once again the shock jocks were out in force against the coal mine.
The government is running scared and afraid to offend anyone in the bush except the coal mining industry.
Some critics of the Watermark project say the decision to grant the lease to the Chinese giant should be reversed because the decision was made by the then Resources Minister Ian Macdonald and he is in jail for granting a lease for Doyles Creek to his union mate John Maitland without a public tender.
However, there is no suggestion that Macdonald didn’t follow the due process in granting the mining leases to Shenhua or to BHP Billiton for the Caroona project.
The decision was made by the government and that is where the story should have ended. Certainty is what companies need so they can plan to invest in exploration and mine development over the long term.
To do otherwise is to tarnish the state’s reputation as a safe place to invest with a bad sovereign risk rating.
If the NSW government keeps reversing its decisions, Hogsback reckons Queensland might end up whipping NSW in the coal mine investment stakes as well as the State of Origin.
