WHILE some residents have benefited considerably from Shenhua’s land buy-out, others have expressed concern the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) had allowed the sale of so much Australian land for mining Australian resources, which would inevitably be taken out of the company.
Normally mining companies have to seek permission from the property owners before undertaking exploration, but because Shenhua now owns the land they are free to drill as they please.
What Shenhua is doing is perfectly legal, its $213m in property purchases just slips under the FIRB radar as the treasury unit only investigates investments totalling more than $230m, however, the buy-up caused waves in parliament on Monday.
Coalition figures, including Bill Heffernan, and independent Nick Xenophon even rallied against the development.
Former FIRB member Chris Miles told metropolitan media he backed a rethink of the trigger points for reviewing off-shore purchases of land and raised further concerns about the increase in Australian assets being controlled by state-owned foreign companies.
Shenhua Watermark Coal project manager Joe Clayton responded to the controversy, saying if it weren’t Shenhua it would be someone else mining the basin.
“Coal is a state-owned asset, sometimes the state wants to develop that asset,” he said.
“The cold hard reality is, if it weren’t Shenhua it would be someone else.”
He also brought attention to the fact there
are very few Australian-owned mining companies.
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