Senate Hearing over NAIF funding of Adani railway

The Four Corners program on Monday night exposed what happens when government and big business conspire and collude.  No doubt the relationship between a few large upstream irrigators engaging in what appeared to be outright and large scale water theft and the NSW public service responsible for water will come under close scrutiny. Many stakeholders downstream are losing vital stock, domestic and irrigation water and will be justifiably questioning how the $13billion Federal Government water buyback ended up with this outcome.  Their voices will be heard.

Speaking of collusion and conspiratorial behaviour - next week there is a Senate hearing into the Northern Australia Investment Fund. The NAIF has given preliminary approval for a $1billion loan to finance a railway for the proposed Adani coal mine in the Carmichael basin.  The NAIF appears to be a bit of a snow job, there is poor transparency, governance, no public information about processes although Senator Matt Canavan gives us an insight:-

"There is not really a formal submission or application process. There are discussions that occur between the board"

Official Committee Hansard Senate Economics Legislation Committee Estimates, Thursday 20 October 2016

Given five of the seven board members have strong ties to the mining sector we can only assume they know their stuff.  Which is good news because the NAIF board don’t need to tell us why nor how they make their decisions?

So the situation is that the NAIF is loaning $1billion of taxpayer dollars to a company based in a tax haven, with a long record of bribery, environmental damage, human rights abuses and corruption.  A loan to help build one of the largest coal mines ever constructed at a time when the financial world is pulling funding from fossil fuels – and coal in particular. Institutions will point to their environmental policies and wave to the crowd, but the real reason the banks won’t fund these assets is because they are too big a financial risk.  The NAIF loan will never be paid back.

Not that the Federal government can take all the credit for this debacle, the QLD state Labour government are keen to help out with royalty concessions and an open ended, unlimited water licence.

Loaning money to Adani will be like pouring water into the Darling River – destined to be siphoned off with the collusion and complicity of the body politic.

We live in a democracy and the people south of Louth will be heard over the water theft. The #StopAdani movement is pushing hard too as the Adani mine is one of those generational ‘line in the sand’ issues. If our representatives are going to push through huge, new fossil fuel projects when climate change is bearing down upon the bush they should expect a backlash like this.  Everyone from the greenies through Lock the Gate to farmer organisations such as Farmers for Climate Action will all be watching the Senate Hearings next week. Should be good viewing.