Tuesday, August 09, 2011 8:07 PM
I don't think Tony Windsor got a dud deal. He just made $100M for the properties with CSG exploration licences he brought before announcing his support for the Carbon Tax.
In February 2010 Mr Windsor sold his farm to Werris Creek Coal for $4.6m. The independent MP was paid three times more per hectare for land sale to mining company than other similar farms nearby. Windsor-in-league-of-his-own-on-farm-sale.
On June 29, 2011 it was put on the record that Windsor was buying up land with coal seam gas (CSG) licences. This a cleaner burning gas which produces 40% less greenhouse gas than coal. CSG has been heralded as the transition fuel to clean energy.
In the months prior Windsor had spent almost $5.9 million buying three northern NSW farms at ridiculously inflated prices in a region targeted as Australia's next major coal-seam gas province by Santos & Eastern Star Gas – a local Narrabri company (20% owned by Santos) with former NP leader, John Anderson, as chairman of the board.
According to property searches, Cintra Investments, owned by Windsor’s family, bought one of the properties, a 459ha farm, for $964,000 in January. A year earlier, the same property had changed hands for $544,400.
Cintra Investments paid $785,100 for a second parcel of land, covering 373ha, also in January. That parcel had last changed hands for $461,000 in late 2007. Cintra paid $4.14m for a third Coonamble property in March.
Mr Windsor said he “wouldn’t have a clue” whether the Eastern Star Gas and Santos licence—petroleum exploration licence 434—covered his properties.
windsor_buys_where_there_the_carbon_polluters_search
It beggars belief that someone who sold 1 farm to a coal company for $4.6 million does not know whether the next 3 farms his company purchased for $5.9 million are covered by coal seam gas exploration licences.
CSG mining
As a chemical engineer I know that the socio-environmental costs of mining CSG (the green name for explosive Methane) would have prohibited its commercial development in a drought affected, farming & grazing region like New England.
The CSG extraction process requires massive amounts of water, causes salinity problems, has high potential for toxic chemicals spill or leakage contaminating drinking & irrigation water, destruction of productive farmland, crop failure, in short, devastation & wasteland creation.
Hence the godsend of the carbon tax scheme & abatements. Wikipedia: Methane abatement - Methane has a global warming potential (GWP) 23 times that of CO2; when combusted, each molecule of methane is converted to one molecule of CO2, thus reducing the global warming effect by 96%.
Mr Windsor has the decisive vote on the Carbon Tax Scheme & has personally negotiated abatements/compensations. He knew that his land with CSG licenses – the “clean energy” transitional fuel - would skyrocket after the Government announced a Carbon Tax. All Windsor had to do was wait for the inevitable takeover bid by a multinational for the big money to roll in.
Multinational takeovers worth $21B
A week after this announcement, on 19 July 2010, Santos made an outright takeover bid of $924m for Eastern Star Gas's coal seam gas permits. Eastern Star's board, chaired by Windor’s former NP colleague John Anderson, unanimously recommended the Santos offer. Windsor has previously been involved in bribery allegations 2004.
ESG was one deal in frenzied takeover activity in resources sector valued at around $21 billion in little over a week after Carbon Sunday. CSG is suddenly commercially viable and conventional coal mines doomed. BHP's US$15.1 billion bid for American shale gas firm Petrohawk Energy. Peabody and ArcelorMital have put $4.7 billion on the table for Macarthur Coal, China's Hanlong Mining has a $1.44 billion offer for Sundance Resources.
I point out that the international joint bid by Peabody Energy (USA) and ArcellorMittal of $4.7 billion for Macarthur Coal is less than its takeover bid rejected last year. China had then intervened, through its shareholder company, to protect its supply of cheap, Australian coal. Now with the coal price/supply uncertain the multinational buys at rock bottom price.
A prima facie case might be made that Windsor, directly or indirectly, has sold out the national interest of a crucial export trade to China to an international competitor – which presumably doesn’t pay the carbon tax – for his own personal gain.
LNG Civil War
Windsor’s personal profit could potentially rob WA/NT of hundreds of billions of dollars in LNG investment and trade. WA talk of secession turns to civil war.
His support of the Carbon Tax suddenly makes the cleaner “dry” methane from CSG land mines delivered over land to processing preferable to the “wet” natural gas mined offshore from the NW shelf and other projects. The LNG Goliath of WA is about to be slain by the East Coast David - just at the time investment returns are set to soar. CSG fired processing plants producing LNG from CSG are cleaner & now cheaper by abatement.
Consider that on 27 Apr 2011 Origin Energy Australia’s largest coal seam gas producer, and its liquefied natural gas (LNG) partner, Conoco Phillips, signed Australia’s biggest single LNG agreement with China’s Sinopec. The deal through their joint venture company, Australia Pacific Liquefied Natural Gas, is worth an estimated $90 billion. This will be the third massive LNG plant proposed at Gladstone following federal and state approval for the Santos and BG Group’s LNG projects.
http://www.independentaustralia.net/2011/environment/coal-seam-gas-is-it-too-late-to-lock-the-gate/
The “New” England Wasteland?
New England is one of the largest cattle electorates in the country. The wheat, cotton and chickpea crops (just to name a few) grown in the area are extremely valuable to Australia in exports and local/national sales. Farming families have lived there for generations.
The 2010 US documentary film Gasland highlights the devastation to farming/agricultural dependent families, businesses and the towns wiped out by CSG mining.
The ESG plans cover about 85,000 hectares with the main seams between 500 metres and one kilometre below the surface, below a layer of non-permeable rock which lies underneath the Great Artesian Basin. (ESG claims not to use “fracking” but the potential for toxic chemical spill/leakage remains).
Queensland farmers affected by CSG mining complain the Darling Basin will become a wasteland. You cannot eat coal and drink coal seam gas water no matter how many fortunes are to be made in what is the driest continent of the world
CSG is predicted to be the biggest environmental fight in Australian history. An inquiry is currently before the Senate.
Windsor’s environmental cure is deadlier than the disease.
“Windsor” - a dirty word
New England gave Labor just 8 per cent of its vote at the last election and the Greens a paltry 4 per cent. Notwithstanding this Windsor has desperately kept Labor/Green in power no matter what it wrecks – families, beef industry, farmland, water, he said nothing after Gillard reneged on NBN costs to the bush [the original reason given for supporting Gillard], his tax summit conditions were vetoed by Swan, gay marriage, carbon tax … WHY – a billion reasons?
“His is the worst betrayal in Australian history. The Norwegians have Quisling, the US have their Benedict Arnold...we have Windsor. All synonymous with the worst sort of treachery”
If you ever needed proof that Tony Windsor has betrayed his electorate, look no further than his behaviour over the live cattle export ban.
Windsor voted against a motion drafted by Queensland independent Bob Katter that would have delivered stun guns to Indonesian abattoirs - and ensured the speedy resumption of the live cattle trade [& thereby avoid glutting the local beef markets]”
Windsor has tried to distract attention/gain sympathy by blaming Mr Abbot for running a smear campaign against him. He alleged a death threat in an interview then reported the “threat” to AFP after the interview. I note that Mr Windsor is currently overseas on a taxpayer funded, fact finding mission on climate change.
After the 2010 election Windsor became unhappy that Bob Katter would not participate in an ABC documentary about the “Three Amigos” independents. An article appeared in Windsor’s local newspaper claiming that Katter carried toilet paper in his briefcase. Katter blamed Windsor. He refused to be in the same room as Windsor for months.
Windsor should have stood down from the Climate Committee. Now he should be compelled to explain to Parliament what the real purpose is of him buying up farmland which is marked for exploration by foreign interest.