Why is Australia PM backing green-tainted Adani project?
8 Aug 2015 1:32 AM GMT
“If the courts can be turned into a means of sabotaging projects which are striving to meet the highest environmental standards, then we have a real problem as a nation,” he said. “We can’t become a nation of naysayers; we have to remain a nation that gives people a fair go if they play by the rules,” Abbott said.
His remarks came after a court this week revoked the environmental approval for the Adani project, which aims to build one of the world’s largest coal mine in Queensland, opposed by green groups and local residents.
In his strongest defence yet of coal production in Australia, Abbott stated that the overturning of the proposed Queensland Carmichael mega coal mine project means courts can be used to “sabotage” worthy projects. “As a country we must, in principle, favour projects like this,” he told The Australian on Thursday.
“This is a vitally important project for the economic development of Queensland and it’s absolutely critical for the human welfare literally of tens of millions of people in India,” the Prime Minister said.
Abbott said he is “frustrated” at the court’s decision and asserted that the projects like Adani mine were too vital to be hindered by red tape.
“If we get to the stage where the rules are such that projects like this can be endlessly frustrated, that’s dangerous for our country and it’s tragic for the wider world,” Abbott said. “So we’ve got to get these projects right...but once they are fully complying with high environmental standards, let them go ahead. While it’s absolutely true that we want the highest environmental standards to apply to projects in Australia, and while it’s absolutely true that people have a right to go to court, this is a $21 billion investment, it will create 10,000 jobs in Queensland and elsewhere in our country,” he said.
Earlier this week, the mining giant Adani suffered another jolt after Australia’s largest lender ended its role as financial adviser to the group’s controversy-hit 16 billion dollar coal mine project in Queensland, a day after the federal court revoked environmental approval for it.
IMG will take call on UK Cairn Energy’s arbitration case soon
An inter-ministerial group (IMG) will meet next week to decide on government action on the arbitration notice slapped by UK’s Cairn Energy Plc over the Rs 10,247-crore tax dispute. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday discussed with his ministry officials the arbitration notices served by foreign firms ahead of the IMG meeting next week.
Revenue Secretary Shaktikanta Das said IMG will meet next week and put forth its views to Jaitley. “On the Cairn tax case, the IMG will decide in a week or shortly on the arbitration notice sent by the Cairn Plc. Then the recommendations of the panel will be sent to Finance Minister for his views,” Das said.
The IMG will include senior officials from the ministries of finance, law and petroleum. Finance Ministry had initially rejected Cairn Energy’s plea for an arbitration saying taxation is not a matter of arbitration and is not covered under the UK-India Investment Promotion and Protection Treaty. But the company is seeking similar treatment as Vodafone. The government had decided to join the arbitration initiated against the Rs 20,000 crore tax demand made on UK telecom major Vodafone and last month appointed Costa Rica-based international lawyer Rodrigo Oreamuno to arbitrate on its behalf.
“The Finance Minister took stock of all the arbitration notices that the government has been receiving to form a broad policy for future course of action,” Das told reporters here. Using the India-UK Investment Protection treaty, Cairn has named former Bulgarian minister and lawyer Stanimir A Alexandrov as its arbitrator and asked the government appoint its own judge on a three-member
arbitration panel.
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