Coal miner must be prosecuted for failure to reveal political donations
Sunday, 28 August 2011 13:19
Illawarra coal giant Gujarat NRE’s failure to disclose 18 political donations to both major parties when submitting a $114m project application in Sydney’s water supply catchment breaches the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act and raises questions about the company’s commitment to transparency, Total Environment Centre said today.
Under NSW planning law a developer is required to declare all political donations at the time a project application is lodged. When Gujarat’s mining application was lodged in March 2010 no donations were disclosed. However a declaration appeared this week on the NSW Planning website detailing 18 donations to both major parties and on the same day the Director-General’s Assessment report supporting the development was released.
“The key action in a developer’s statutory requirement to declare donations to political parties is to do so when the project application is lodged, not 17 months later,” said Jeff Angel, Executive Director of the Centre.
“Political donations and their timely lodgement with an application are a highly sensitive matter. They must be declared at the correct time to inform the government and community of the situation and political relationships. It’s essential to the integrity of the planning system.”
“After the profile this issue had under the last government, and especially in Wollongong, it beggars belief that this major company didn’t know full disclosure was required. It is staggering that Gujarat’s donations were only declared this week and on the same day as the NSW Planning report. There are only two excuses - they forgot or wanted to avoid the tranparency rules - neither is satisfactory and prosecution and penalty should be in train.”
"TEC is also very concerned about the impact of the project on Sydney's drinking water supply, not least because it is the first and necessary stage to a massive longwall mining expansion. The entire project should have been assessed - not in segments because once the first stage is in, the company will no doubt argue it must proceed with the next, more damaging development," he said.
