Photo by: Bloomberg
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The Queensland Resources Council (QRC) has warned Australian government agencies that appeasing antiresources activists could discourage investment into Australia’s resources sector.
Speaking at the Darwin Mining Club, QRC CEO Michael Roche said that, in a fruitless attempt to appease the activists, state and Commonwealth Ministers seemed determined to entrench almost unlimited opportunities to use litigation to delay project approvals.
“Our governments keep kidding themselves that the activists are prepared to play in the space of ecological sustainable development, where projects are assessed across the balance of environmental, social and economic considerations,” Roche said.
“In reality, antiresources activists, by and large, see environmental considerations as trumping everything else.
“This is environmental absolutism, nothing more and nothing less.”
Roche said the number one strategy in the anticoal playbook was the litigation strategy, which was being enthusiastically and successfully deployed by the activists.
“Our governments delude themselves that foreign investors have limitless patience as their projects are mired in a seemingly unending process of legal challenges,” he stated.