Labor's hypocrisy on Wyong coal mine

With a State Election behind us and a Federal Election coming up the campaign intensifies here on the Central Coast with the Labor Party and the Greens showing their hypocrisy across many local issues the two most important being the Central Coast Airport and the Wyong Coal Mine project.

While the ALP vehemently opposes this coal mine they conveniently forget that it was Premier Bob Carr who on the 6th November 1995 wrote to the Managing Director of Coal Operations Australia Ltd (COAL) congratulating him and the company on winning the tender for the Wyong Coal Exploration Area.

He went further saying, "As Premier of New South Wales, I am pleased to see the commitment of your parent company to invest in my State's coal industry."

He was referring to the Wyong Areas Coal Joint Venture of which COAL was the original majority shareholder with Kores Australia Pty Ltd and other Korean and Japanese companies having a minority interest.

Subsequently, in 2002 BHP Billiton bought out COAL's interests and later in 2005 sold that interest to Kores.

The project was called the Wallarah 2 Coal Project and from the time the exploration license was granted, mine planning and environmental investigations defined significant coal resources beneath the western areas of the region.

In all good faith from the moment of receiving the exploration license from the NSW Labor Government nearly 25 years ago these companies have spent huge amounts of money on exploration and now have every right to proceed to mine the reserves they have found.

Or, of course to recover all that from the NSW Government and possibly Central Coast Council as they have now become implicated by supporting the anti-mine lobby by financing their losing case in the Land and Environment Court.

Meanwhile, to give weight to that just last month on 5th February in The Australian, the Federal Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen broke ranks with his Leader and said, "A Labor government would allow the Adani coalmine in Queensland to proceed because a decision to block it would raise concerns of sovereign risk."

He went on, "I believe in protection against sovereign risk, and of all the things I've prioritised spending money on in my first budget as Labor treasurer, if it proceeds, providing compensation for Adani for a breach of contract and breach of law is not one of them."

So where does this leave the Member for Wyong and so called Shadow Minister for the Central Coast David Harris and the Members for The Entrance and Gosford, along with those Central Coast Councillors who have backed the Mayor against the Wyong Coal Co.

The question has to be put, "will they be prepared to run the risk of being sued for mega millions for breach of contract just to grab a hand full of votes to satisfy the activists?"