The Queensland Government decision to grant repeat offender Whitehaven Coal “suitable operator status” risks Queensland’s environment by ignoring the company’s long list of crimes committed in its home state of NSW.
The QLD Environment Department officially deemed Whitehaven to be a “suitable operator” on Friday last week. The assessment was required as part of Whitehaven’s purchase of the Daunia and Blackwater coal mines in Central QLD, formerly owned by BHP.
Whitehaven is a known social and environmental criminal in its home state, with more than 100 prosecutions, fines, and warnings for various offences committed at its coal mines in NSW’s Namoi Valley.
In October last year, freedom of information documents revealed Whitehaven appeared to have lost track of how many offences it had committed, with NSW authorities needing to remind the company as part of its Narrabri Underground Coal Mine expansion application.
Namoi Valley district farmer Sally Hunter said there was little to suggest Whitehaven would change its ways now that it had expanded north of the border.
“Breaking the law is just the cost of business for criminal company Whitehaven. Whitehaven stole one billion litres of water from farming communities at the height of the worst drought in living memory. Its penalty was to pay a pitiful fine worth little more than a few carriages of coal," she said.
“Queenslanders better hope their environmental authorities are ready to respond swiftly and harshly when - not if - Whitehaven breaks the law in QLD too.”
Lock the Gate Alliance National Coordinator Ellen Roberts said, “Despite more than one hundred warnings, penalties, and prosecutions, Whitehaven has refused to change its criminal behaviour. Sadly we have no reason to believe this company’s behaviour will be any different in QLD.
“If Whitehaven can obtain suitable operator status, it’s hard to imagine what a company would have to do to be refused.
“The bar is clearly set too low. Queenslanders, particularly the regional Queenslanders like adjacent farmers who will be forced to directly deal with Whitehaven’s actions, deserve better.”
ENDS