Cash-strapped coal miners get food vouchers

A financial lifeline has been thrown to hundreds of Wollongong coal miners who have not been paid for almost three weeks while their employer, Gujarat NRE Coking Coal Limited, seeks approval for a major restructuring next week, according to The Australian Financial Review.

The Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union said yesterday that the miners would each receive about $1200 cash from funds contributed by the company to the industry’s Long Service Leave Fund.

Union leaders addressed a meeting of about 300 workers in Wollongong from Gujarat’s No. 1 and Wongawilli mines. CFMEU lodges have been buying supermarket vouchers to help feed the affected families.

IMF warns debt standoff to hit growth

In its sharpest intervention in the US budget shutdown, the International Monetary Fund has warned that a loss of market confidence in US Treasury bonds could lead to a global recession, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

In its half-yearly World Economic Outlook, the IMF warns that a failure by Congress to raise the US debt ceiling “'could be very damaging” to the global economy.

“Reassessment of US sovereign risk could reduce global output by several percentage points of GDP,” the IMF says.

On its new forecasts released on Tuesday night, that would wipe out global growth.

Industry rejects landholder royalties

The resource sector has rejected calls to give landholders US-style rights to resources royalties, saying the move could open up legal action and might not improve access to coalseam-gas rich land, according to The Australian.

Giving landholders a greater share of mineral and energy resources, which in Australia are owned by the state, has been raised as a way to ease opposition to CSG, which has frozen development in Victoria and many areas of NSW.

But the practicalities of the measure may block any moves to give landholders direct royalties from production on their land.