Coal scandals and controversies in Queensland, Australia

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Coal scandals and controversies in Queensland, Australia

Coal scandals and controversies

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Year	Scandal name	Nature of the scandal
2014	New Hope's campaign to expand the Acland mine	New Hope, a coal mining subsidiary of Washington H Soul Pattinson, has campaigned for a major expansion of its New Acland mine. In March 2012 the newly elected Premier Campbell Newman stated that an expansion of the minewas "inappropriate".^[1] Since then, New Hope have been a major donor to the Queensland Liberal National Party and invited Queensland government ministers to be their guests at major sporting events.^[2]
2014	QCoal's head of corporate affairs worked on LNP's 2012 election campaign	James Mackay, the head of corporate affairs for QCoal, worked full-time for the LNP during the 2012 election while he was being paid $10,000 a month by the company. ^[3]

Coal scandals and controversies include:

New Hope's campaign to expand the Acland mine: In March 2012 the newly elected Premier Campbell Newman stated that an expansion of the minewas "inappropriate".^[1] Since then, New Hope have been a major donor to the Queensland Liberal National Party and invited Queensland government ministers to be their guests at major sporting events.^[4] (See New Hope's campaign for the Stage 3 expansion of the New Acland mine, Queensland, Australia for further details).

QCoal's PR adviser seconded to LNP's 2012 election campaign: James Mackay, the head of corporate affairs for QCoal, worked full-time for the LNP during the 2012 election while he was being paid $10,000 a month by the company. The ABC reported that "Mr Mackay has chaired the LNP's state environment and heritage protection committee, which develops policy for discussion at the party's annual conference, since being voted on to the committee in 2012." It also reported that after the election QCoal sought and gained approval for the diversion of Coral Creek at the Sonoma mine in north Queensland without environmental assessment to enable it to access more coal mine the coal underneath. A neighbouring farmer lost a legal appeal to prevent the creek diversion and had costs awarded against him.^[5] (See QCoal's PR adviser and his role with the Liberal National Party, Queensland, Australia for further details).

Approximate locations of areas referred to in coal mining scandals are:

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