The Government of New South Wales, in Australia, is preparing changes for minings assessments that could attract the increase of corruption, says the NSW Greens group. The changes recently announced are more focused on the economic benefits and that is raising general concern in the country.
John Kaye, NSW Greens MP, claims these alterations will re-create a Labor’s coal-development at all costs type of mentality:
If we want to avoid a repeat of yesterday’s ICAC findings the creation of an assumption that mining will go ahead is exactly the space in which the sort of corruption that yesterday’s ICAC report exposed. What we don’t want to have is an environment where the system is so profoundly titled towards the mining proposals that there’s all sorts of opportunities that influence peddling.
These changes mean that communities like Bulga, in the Hunter Valley, could vanish to boost big businesses.
According to John Kaye, the update will generate more corruption, especially due to the absence of public scrutiny: “what we need in NSW is not an assumption that mining will go ahead, not more backroom deals but the public having full say and full transparency on every mining application”.