NSW: Macdonald: Greens would send NSW "back to the caves"

AAP General News (Australia)
08-13-2009
NSW: Macdonald: Greens would send NSW "back to the caves"

SYDNEY, Aug 13 AAP - NSW Mineral Resources Minister Ian Macdonald says the Greens have
exaggerated the scale and impact of mining in the state, accusing them of "trying to send
us all back to the caves".

The Greens and Mr Macdonald have long been at loggerheads over the growth of the mining
industry in NSW.

A slanging match escalated on Thursday outside a conference in Sydney where environmentalists
staged an anti-coal protest and labelled Mr Macdonald a "wanted carbon criminal" who was
driving climate change.

NSW Greens MP Lee Rhiannon said the minister had locked NSW into a dirty, coal-fired
future at the expense of agriculture.

"For too long Ian Macdonald's strong ties to the coal industry have driven NSW's poor
performance on climate change," she said.

Ms Rhiannon accused Mr Macdonald, also the minister for agriculture, of having conflicting
portfolios.

But Mr Macdonald hit back, saying the Greens "had got it wrong".

"They are pretending that I (also) have the planning portfolio, but I don't, so whatever
developments are put forward, the actual decision is made by the planning minister - not
by me," he said.

Mr Macdonald said he had granted very few mining leases since taking on the portfolio in 2005.

"I have granted 14 mining or petroleum production leases to coal, mineral or petroleum
projects," he said in a speech at the NSW Mineral and Exploration Conference.

"If you read some of the literature by certain types of people in the community you
would think it was hundreds, but it's actually 14.

After the conference he told reporters the Greens were known for exaggeration in relation
to mining.

"(They) would want us to close down mining and exploration in this state and send us
all back to the caves."

Mr Macdonald said the 14 projects involved a total capital investment of more than
$2 billion and had created more than 1,600 full-time jobs - some of them taken by farmers'
families to supplement their income during the drought.

"One of my biggest challenges is to find solutions to problems arising from conflicting
land-use needs," he said.

"This is an area that I believe compromise can be and has been achieved."

Mr Macdonald voiced his support for the federal government's emissions trading scheme,
voted down in the Senate on Thursday.

Labor could not muster the numbers needed to have its package of 11 bills, to enable
the carbon pollution reduction scheme, approved in the upper house.

"The commonwealth's legislation will form part of a national program on the future,"

Mr Macdonald said.

"We have some difficulties with it in relation to generators in the coal industry,
but overall the package is moving forward and will be part of a global strategy going
forward."

AAP bzs/hn/jl

KEYWORD: CLIMATE MACDONALD UPDATE (PIX AVAILABLE)

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