Westpac Finances Bathurst

Foreign Bank Funds Foreign Coal Miner To Destroy NZ Biodiversity & Global Climate

- Jeanette Fitzsimons

It’s bad enough that the four main banks in Aotearoa are all Australian-owned, repatriating their profits to that country. It’s bad enough that all banks create credit out of nothing with a few computer strokes; then make their money lending it to us at interest – a function that should belong to a properly elected Government, on behalf of the people. But when a foreign bank uses this power to finance the destruction of the climate, our children’s future and the unique biodiversity of this country, it is just too much.

Watchdog has reported in the past on the plans of Bathurst Resources to dig up the unique ecology of the Denniston Plateau on the West Coast for coking coal to sell to the steel industry in Asia (see Parts 1 & 2 of Dennis Small’s “Primary Production, Free Trade, Resource Conflict & Corporate Plunder” in Watchdogs 128, December 2011, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/28/08.htm  and 129, April 2012, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/29/11.htm. Ed.).

Bathurst is also a foreign company, though it tries to pretend otherwise. It has moved its head office to Wellington and listed on the NZX, and at Denniston calls itself Buller Coal, but don’t be fooled. It is owned 93% outside NZ, mainly in Australia and the US (the largest NZ shareholder is our savings in the Super Fund which doesn’t see a need to change). Bathurst is not financially very flush. Its only income is from three small mines it operates here. It has never mined coal anywhere else. It has deferred payment in one way or another on most of the assets it has bought, so that if it does ever start digging up Denniston it will owe $80m to L&M, from which it bought the mining rights, as well as a 10c/tonne royalty. It failed to raise the full $20m it sought when it went to the market with a new share issue recently and all indications are that its pockets aren’t very deep.

Tell Westpac To Stop Funding Coal Mining

However, Westpac is helping out. It is Bathurst’s banker and has a $5m loan and further credit and overdraft facilities. Bathurst now has its Resource Management Act consents for the Denniston mine, despite two years of appeals, although there are some conditions that still have to be fulfilled. The law seems to have run its course and has failed to protect us. That’s why Coal Action Network Aotearoa (CANA) and 350.org, both focussed on climate change, are calling on Westpac to dump Bathurst. We launched on 15 October 2013 in front of its’ head office in Auckland with a number of bags of coal and big banners, and delivered a letter to the Chief Executive Officer. We followed up in Wellington a week later and then with a week of action around the country.

You can help. We are asking people to send an emailed letter to Westpac’s CEO calling on him to stop funding coal mining. You can take part in the campaign by going to www.westpacdumpcoal.org.nz and sending the letter yourself. This action is part of an international campaign to encourage investors to get out of fossil fuels. That may be the only way to stop the continued drilling, digging and fracking that is destroying the climate. Pension funds, universities and other institutions are being asked by their investors and students to get out of coal and fossil fuels. Some already are. In this case, it should be easy. Westpac prides itself on its’ reputation for sustainability. In 2011 it won the supreme award from the Sustainable Business Network. Westpac says sustainability is at the heart of its’ business – and that this applies not just to its’ internal operations but to the clients it chooses to lend to.  Let’s make it live up to the rhetoric. There is nothing at all sustainable about coal, not even the jobs.


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