Adani fined $20k on land clearing error

COAL mining giant Adani has been slapped with a $20,000 fine for misleading the state’s environmental regulator about land clearing at its Carmichael mine site.

The company faced Brisbane Magistrates Court yesterday over allegations it failed to declare 5.8ha of land clearing activity in its annual report to the Environment Department – an oversight the company has branded an “administrative error”.

Magistrate Stephen Courtney said the company had broken the law by failing to properly declare the correct amount of land disturbance.

“The company is a large one, it is well resourced,” he said. “This just should not have happened.”

Prosecutor Stephen Keim said there had been a “systemic failure” by the company which should have had an auditing system in place “to make sure these sorts of mistakes didn’t happen”.

“There is a community expectation that people who receive environmental licences and particularly if they are large scale … that there is a real attention to compliance,” he said.

A number of anti-adani protesters chanted and waved signs condemning the coal mine outside court.

Defence barrister Jeffrey Hunter said the fact the prosecutor was submitting for a penalty in the range of $25,000 for an offence that attracted a maximum penalty of $3 million “says volumes about the objective gravity of this offending”.

“My client takes its environmental responsibility very seriously,” he said.

“The point we make about this is that it’s not as though the prosecution can point to a decision the department might have made differently had it known the true state of affairs, nor does the prosecution point to a creation of any potential for risk, environmental harm or the safety to human life.

“My client has done what it could upon discovering the offence to fix the error.”

The company pleaded guilty to one charge of giving a false or misleading statement to an administering authority.

In addition to the $20,000 fine, Adani was ordered to pay $6000 in costs.

Mr Courtney said the offence was the first committed by the company and no conviction was recorded.

An Adani Mining spokeswoman said the company had put new systems in place.

“This is in relation to an administrative error,” she said.

“There was no environmental harm, all relevant works were legal, and fully complied with our project conditions.

“We took responsibility for the administrative error at the time and introduced improvements.”