by Cheryl Adam
Temple had looked balefully at me through his coke bottle glasses. “There’s a bigger story somewhere.”
I went to the library and did some research handing back a page or two of copy. He hurled the pages across the room.
“You can do baiter than thet,” he shouted all South African rage. ‘Thea are no interviews whatsoever. Thees is NOT a story.”
It was a turning point. Gathering what was left of my selfesteem, I went home to sulk. Temple’s scathing comments, however, had inadvertently creaked open the door to my new career. He had given me three out of ten for my first writing assignment – one of the highest marks in the class. After that, though, we had been negotiating respect and friendship. Sadly, he died from cancer in March 2018 during the writing of this book. His legacy and support are lasting gifts.
The week after his dressing down in 1982, I drove to the coal-mining town of Lithgow. Stumbling into the local hotel, I discovered a wake for two miners in full throttle. Pulling out my notebook, I began using my rusty shorthand honed at secretarial college amazed at how candid these miners were. One even described how he had been working with one of the men who had died on a ‘patchy bit of roof’ when a big piece of rock crushed him: “… his spine was broken in two places, guts smashed, legs broken,” I had written. The exchange at the pub and the harsh reality of the story empowered me. Unlike the theory in the university, this was a real story. What did they do with all the money they earned?
The photographer and I stayed for the weekend knocking on a few doors in the town. The Lithgow District Workmen’s Club turned out to have the highest turnover in New South Wales. In 1981, it had grossed $1.6 million. What’s more, half of the 5900 members were miners. The powerboat merchandiser and caravan saleyard in town was doing a roaring trade. The miners themselves lived in weatherboard shacks more like shanties and seemed to spend most of their money on consumables – video cameras (then a luxury item) and televisions. The head of the Lithgow Credit Union informed me that after payday on a Wednesday, the miners would withdraw the whole pay cheque Thursday. I had quoted Bill Smale from the Australian Coal and Shale Employees Federation who claimed the reason for the high pay was “the outcome of a class struggle … The miners,” he said, “and wharfies and seamen have been able to use their industry to get higher pay because it’s a commodity industry and they can fight the bosses because they’ve got something to fight them with …” And the bosses, I had written, all those years ago, had found them a force to reckon with. In 1981, 2 million tonnes of export coal was lost through miners’ disputes.
The mining industry has a lot to lose if it fails to woo its workers, but it also must woo the politicians. The Australia Institute, in a recent report entitled: ‘The tip of the iceberg: Political donations from the mining industry’,41 reported the mining industry had disclosed donations of $16.6 million to major political parties over the last ten years (2006–07 to 2015–16). The Report found these donations had increased from a base of $345,000 in 2006–07 to a peak of $3,788,904 in 2010–11 (interestingly coinciding with the demise of the proposal on carbon tax). 81% of these donations went to the Coalition, including 71% to the Liberal Party. The Report noted that it was not until 2007–08 that the mining industry first disclosed donations that reached over $1 million: the first year that carbon-pricing policy was taken to an election in Australia. It also noted that mining company donors often made significant political donations in years when they pay no company tax. Chillingly, it revealed that these donations correlate with the election cycles, timelines on project approvals, and debates on key industry policies such as the mining tax and carbon price.
Thirty-five years after I wrote that article in The Sydney Morning Herald, we continue to encourage, applaud and grudgingly admire the bolshy characteristics of our cultivated egalitarian working-class identity: the hard-hat fighting heroes. The current Premier of Queensland, Annastacia Palaszczuk, takes every opportunity to don a hard hat, knowing mining royalties are a big source of income. The success of the select few who benefit from the huge surge in profits in the mining industry are applauded. Our grudging admiration for the wealthy is exemplified by how affectionately they are portrayed in the national media.
Clive Palmer, waiting in the wings for the Galilee Basin to be opened up, is a case in point. Media coverage of Palmer’s escapades over the years has focused on the 55 Mercedes Benzes, 700 international holidays and 50 weekends to the Sheraton Mirage at Port Douglas he doled out to his best performing workers for Christmas presents when his Yabulu Queensland Nickel refinery north of Townsville, fronting on to the Coral Sea, was in its heyday. The refinery produced about 30,000 tonnes of nickel and 1500 tonnes of cobalt a year and employed around 1000 people. There were further humorous headlines over the 160 giant plastic dinosaurs Palmer put in his theme park in the Sunshine Coast – ‘the world’s largest dinosaur park’ – which spectacularly failed in March 2015. Other headlines detail how Palmer evicted a guest who had questioned the theme park restaurant about whether they knew how to cook a blue steak.
The environmental fallout and the catastrophic legacy Queensland Nickel left Australia after the refinery collapsed was buried under headlines about the company’s business dealings. Palmer had been telling the media the refinery had gone from strength to strength and production was ‘going through the roof’. He was also one of the strongest critics of the carbon tax. Unbelievably, Australia had no legislation at that time to prosecute directors for what the company had done to the environment. Upon buying the refinery in 2009 from BHP Billiton, Palmer, according to Hedley Thomas writing in The Australian on 30 January 2016,42 agreed that for three years after the 2009 sale, the refinery would not pay “any dividend … permit or facilitate any return of capital, capital reduction, share buyback or any other form of distribution … provide any financial benefit to a buyer or (Mr Palmer) or to any person or entity associated with a buyer or (Mr Palmer).” Thomas also quoted a BHP Billiton 2009 review of the site that warned: “groundwater is already high in ammonia. Post closure activities could go well beyond 2021.”
In May 2018, the Brisbane Supreme Court approved an application by Queensland Nickel liquidators, who had started court proceedings against Palmer to recover money owed to creditors to freeze almost $205 million of Palmer’s personal wealth.43 But this was only a temporary direction as the court case is not yet finalised. Palmer’s lawyers asked for a stay in proceedings to lodge an appeal but this was dismissed.
In June 2012, according to documents obtained by the North Queensland Conservation Council and published by The Guardian,44 Queensland Nickel had indicated its intention to discharge sewage, through its ocean outfall pipeline, from its tailings dam into the Great Barrier Reef even though the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) had stated that the company had no permit to do so. The company requested that the discharge continue for “at least three months.” The documents stated the release would be 100 times the maximum level permitted for sewage discharge in the marine park and included heavy metals and other contaminants. The threat of another major discharge from the refinery ponds to the ecosystem of Halifax Bay in the World Heritage Area was described, in the documents, as “similar to the daily discharge of treated sewage from a city of seven million people.”
The Guardian45 later reported that the nickel refinery had also made unauthorised discharges of nitrogen-laden water into the world heritage area in 2009 and again in 2011 when 516 tonnes of nitrogen was released into the World Heritage Area. This represented a 14% increase in the amount of nitrogen into the Burdekin catchment.
At the time this book goes to print, Palmer was in the news again saying that QNI Resources, which owns the refinery, would re-open it.46
Not until April 2016 did the Queensland Government finally pass legislation to empower the Government to ensure resource companies meet their environmental responsibilities even if they go into administration after a venture fails. The Environmental Protec
tion (Chain of Responsibility) Amendment Act 2016 (EPCR Act), ensures that Queensland taxpayers will no longer be left to clean up the mess of failed industrial ventures, and instead will hold executives responsible for the clean-up costs. The environmental damage caused, however, may never be repaired. The fact that it has taken this long to introduce such legislation shows how little regard our governments have for the environment and how willing they are to accept the mining industry claims all in the name of ‘progress’ and jobs.
There is another mining project that may also yet escape penalties for major pollution in Queensland. Adani secured its proposed Carmichael mine site in 2010 doing a deal with Linc Energy worth up to $3 billion over 20 years for its Galilee Basin coal deposits.47 In the years since, Linc Energy has caused catastrophic environmental consequences following the collapse of its coal gasification site in Chinchilla, 300 kms west-northwest of Brisbane after the company went into liquidation.
After a 10-week trial which began in January 2018, the company pleaded not guilty but offered no defence to the allegations. It faces a record $4.5 million fine for causing serious environmental harm under the Environment Protection Act. Five directors of Linc Energy were also charged with five counts of wilfully causing serious environmental harm between 2007 and 2013 and are due to face a committal hearing in the Brisbane Magistrate’s Court in July 2018. The company was liquidated in May 2016 with speculation this was to avoid fines from the Queensland Government.
The Queensland Government had to accept responsibility to clean up and secure the site even though the Department of Environment and Science served an Environment Protection Order (EPO)48 on the former chief executive of Linc Energy, Peter Bond, in May 2016 to clean up the site. The site was ordered to be decommissioned and a $5.5 million fee be paid to secure compliance of the order.
Media reports from the court case revealed some alarming facts. In the opening address to the jury, Crown Prosecutor, Ralph Devlin, QC, told the jury that explosive and toxic gases had been released into the environment. Even though the alarm had been raised to the board in 2009, and former managers and senior figures at Linc Energy had been repeatedly warned about the risks of environmental harm over a seven-year period, ‘commercial interests’ were often prioritised by the company, an ABC report stated.49 The soil of local farming families was at risk of being contaminated by dangerous levels of carbon monoxide and farmers had been advised not to dig deeper than two metres without contacting the government. This was after it was discovered that Linc Energy had fractured the rock beneath their land releasing toxic chemicals into the soil, air and groundwater for six years.
A statement by a gas operator, Timothy Ford, was read to the jury. Timothy Ford had revealed that workers had been told to drink milk and eat yoghurt to protect their stomachs from acid. According to a report from the ABC in February 2018, Ford had said that during his time working for Linc, he felt “the sickest he’d ever been” and that the gas burnt his eyes and nose and he would need to leave the plant after work to get fresh air. Ford died in 2015, too late to give evidence.
The prosecution noted that the company, especially its CEO Peter Bond, had allowed operations to continue because “it put commercial interests over environmental obligations.” This included injecting air into underground combustion chambers that was too high causing the rock surrounding the coal seam to fracture and allow the escape of toxic gases.
Premier Palaszczuk described the venture as “the biggest pollution event probably in Queensland history.” Environmental campaigner Lock the Gate spokesperson Vicki Perrin told the ABC50 she was “deeply concerned” about the company’s ability to pay the penalty given it was in liquidation.
“The Queensland Government needs to stop approving every mining and gas project that comes before it, and set higher standards in the early stages before we end up with another mess like this,” she said.
As to who is responsible for the massive environmental cleanup, said to be worth $78 million according to an article in The Australian by Michael McKenna on 9 April 2018, the squabbles began in what the Queensland Government described as “the most complex environmental investigation in Queensland’s history.”51 In April 2017, the Queensland Supreme Court accepted the Department of Environment and Science’s (DES) argument that the liquidators were still responsible to comply with the EPO attached to the site as they were deemed executive officers of the company. Newspaper reports had speculated that the Queensland taxpayer is already paying around $6 million to prosecute the company.
But the most expensive issue, as it was in Queensland Nickel’s case, is the massive clean-up left behind after these projects gain environmental approval from governments to go ahead. And this from a company who has been the subject of a so-called rigorous environmental process that includes public scrutiny. It is not even clear at this stage exactly what damage has been done underground through the gasification cavities according to the DES. On 9 March 2018, the liquidators for Linc were relieved of responsibility for ongoing statutory environmental obligations by the Queensland Court of Appeal.52
Our environmental regulations, both at the State and Federal level, are supposed to stop these major polluters from causing environmental harm. It is obvious, however, particularly when reviewing the number of legal objections filed in court to the Adani mine, that whether there are objections or not, the wealthy will continue to be supported by our legal system. Right back to the approval by our environmental gatekeepers, is there enough scrutiny about who we are letting through the gates? What consequences did the Linc experiment have on any ongoing coal seam gas extraction? Or will companies simply continue to get away with not enough transparency in their operations?
Meanwhile, even those who have committed massive environmental breaches continue to flourish on the back-mining-ventures-at-all-costs merry-go-round that the taxpayer funds. The personal wealth of Peter Bond, CEO of Linc, who initially made his money through coal, soared to an estimated $350 million when mining shares boomed.
Commenting on the guilty verdict against Linc, Bond, quoted by McKenna in The Sydney Morning Herald, said the trial was “meaningless and a waste of taxpayer’s money.”
Richard Guilliatt who profiled the businessman in The Weekend Australian Magazine, said Bond’s $9.5 million mansion in Brisbane’s Fig Tree Pocket featured parking for seven cars and its own cinema.
After a continuing history of environmental catastrophes where those who cause the environmental disasters walk away, it is time to create new headlines: to awaken the public to the kinds of decisions Australian politicians have been making over the past decade. Specifically, given the magnitude of the project and its consequences, we need to draw people’s attention to the proposed Adani mine that has one of the longest of all mining leases.
Gujarat is our first stop on this journey in March 2017. Ahmedabad, the largest city in Gujarat and its former capital, is Adani’s headquarters. Our aim is to cross Annastacia Palaszczuk’s path – to throw an international spotlight on her dealings with Adani – casting further scrutiny on Australia’s environmental reputation on the world stage. Our brief from the Australian Marine Conservation Society, that is funding this journey, is to tell the world, that the Queensland Government is “on a dangerous junket to promote a damaging project.”
We are also carrying a letter for Gautam Adani signed by 90 prominent Australians including the cricket giants – the Chappell brothers, Greg and Ian – Booker prize winning author, Richard Flanagan and Pulitzer prize winning novelist, Geraldine Brooks. The letter is to be personally delivered by our group to Adani headquarters in Ahmedabad.
The letter urges Adani to abandon the Carmichael mine in Australia and invest in renewables.
The businessman next to me has finished crunching. As we head skyward, he pushes back his chair and closes his eyes. I gaze again at the headlines in the Indian newspaper struck by the preposterous situation with its Monty-Pythonesque skit-like proportions. I wond
er, and it won’t be for the last time, why no one appears to care.
Chapter 3
‘The Custodians’ of the Great Barrier Reef
This is my first time as an environmental vigilante, despite the fact I’ve spent more than a decade as an investigative journalist. For 13 years, I’ve taught students both at undergraduate and postgraduate level to adopt the principles of the fourth estate: urging them to consider the media’s independence from the other three estates (which originally had a more anachronistic meaning but are more commonly referred to as judiciary, parliament and church), and to consider the media’s duty to be a watchdog on society. In 2000, I designed and taught investigative journalism subjects at Masters level at the University of Tasmania where students learned how to use Freedom of Information (FOI) tools. They focused on one particular topic for an entire year. I later introduced similar subjects at James Cook University (JCU). The subject ran for two semesters at the University of Tasmania to counteract how long government departments took, back then, to respond to FOI requests.