Earlier this month, ABC’s Four Corners revealed that Adani has set up secret tax havens so that it can avoid paying tax to Australians once the Carmichael mega-coal project is up and running:
…experts say an opaque web of companies and trusts behind its Australian assets gives it ample opportunity to minimise the tax it pays.
“Absolutely, Adani has put in place multiple ways in which they can minimise the amount of tax they pay in Australia, and maximise the amount of profits if they choose in Caribbean tax havens,” Adam Walters, research director at the consultancy Energy and Resource Insights, told Four Corners…
This followed an earlier report from former Indian environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, who claimed the Adani Group’s track record on environmental management within India has been atrocious.
Today, The ABC reports that Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) officials may have been involved in possible secret requests for foreign cash to fund the controversial mine:
Key federal crossbenchers will today grill senior government bureaucrats about possible secret approaches to foreign agencies for financial support for Adani’s controversial Carmichael coal mine.
The questions have been sparked by a Freedom of Information request to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) for documents relating to requests for foreign government financing for the controversial multi-billion-dollar mine and rail project.
In response, DFAT asked for more time to respond as the request had “captured several hundred pages of documents”.
Senator Nick Xenophon said he would be demanding clarification from DFAT officials at Senate Estimates today about what representations the Federal Government has made to foreign agencies.
“It is not the role of the Australian Government or its diplomatic missions to be involved as finance brokers for a very controversial project like this,” he said.
“There needs to be an open and transparent process.”
Greens leader Richard Di Natale said the Federal Government must tell the public if any representations have been made to international finance agencies about funding Adani’s projects.
“DFAT, the Foreign Minister, the Trade Minister, should immediately come clean with what sort of secret deals are going on between some of these finance companies, international companies, and the Australian Government,” he said.
The FOI request was lodged in August by The Australia Institute, which asked for all “correspondence and cables” relating to requests for foreign government financing of Adani’s projects.
A recent ReachTel survey of almost 2,200 people across Australia found 55.6% of respondents opposed the Adani mine going ahead – more than twice the number who supported the mine:
Whereas a Roy Morgan research opinion poll conducted earlier this month found the majority of Australians (53.5%) did not think ‘the Adani mine should go ahead’ – well ahead of the 16% that said the Adani mine should go ahead:
All of which raises the question of why the Australian government is so keen on extending a $1 billion concessional loan from Australian taxpayers to India’s Adani, especially given India’s Minister for State Power has already acknowledged that the cost of solar power is now cheaper than coal, meaning that the Carmichael Project risks becoming an unviable stranded asset, and Australian taxpayers risk losing their dough:
Not to mention the massive environmental costs attached to the project, nor that it would displace existing coal mines and workers in Queensland and New South Wales.
When it comes to Adani, Australian voters are not stupid. They know that the mega-coal mine represents a wasteful and destructive white elephant, and there is absolutely no way that scarce taxpayer funds should be used on the project.
It’s high time our politicians listened.
