ONE of the country’s most influential anti-mining groups has welcomed assurances from the state government that Shenhua’s shady corporate history will be investigated before any mining licence is granted.
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Lock the Gate Alliance wrote to Resources and Energy MP Anthony Roberts last week requesting the enterprise, whose state-run parent company is under a corruption cloud in China, is examined closely.
The group is questioning whether Shenhua’s local subsidiary, Shenhua Watermark, is a “fit and proper” applicant under the NSW Mining Act 1992 to hold a licence allowing it to proceed with its mine at Breeza.
Late last year, global financial media company Bloomberg reported that three Shenhua Group officials, including a former vice-president of a subsidiary company, had been swept up in a government crackdown on corruption.
The crisis deepened in June when Shenhua confirmed senior vice-president Hao Gui was the subject of an investigation by judicial authorities.
Lock the Gate spokeswoman George Woods said the Liverpool Plains was too important to be “put at risk” by granting a mining licence to a company with “any sort of cloud hanging over” it.
“We’re calling on Minister Roberts to directly approach the Chinese government seeking as much information as possible on the status of their investigations into Shenhua Group or their employees,” she said.
“It would be a very serious matter to issue a mining lease to Shenhua in Australia whilst their parent company is under investigation for alleged corruption in China, or under scrutiny for poor environmental performance.”
