TWELVE years seems an extraordinarily long time for government to make a decision about whether to rape the Liverpool Plains with Shenhua's Watermark coal mine.
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Either the government is too gutless to cop World War Three if it does approve, or is using obfuscation on steroids to avoid a decision.
The NSW government's delay has put excessive mental duress on farmers, koala conservationists, indigenous Australians and NSW taxpayers, giving them a good old-fashioned shafting to please a Chinese government-owned outfit called Shenhua.
It is difficult to pick what the most important thing to protect on the Liverpool Plains is, with food production, koala habitat and extremely important Indigenous cultural heritage sites all irreplaceable.
But still for 12 years government has fumbled.
I wonder how many of us would remain in business if it took us that long to make a decision.
The recent NSW upper house report into the state's koala population and habitat says that without protections the koala could be extinct by 2050.
The Liverpool Plains has long been recognised an important koala habitat and this mine would result in more of it being destroyed.
Following the destruction by Boggabri Coal of part of the Leard State Forest just up the road you would think the coal industry had done enough damage.
Shenhua should not get the go ahead.
The Goomeroi traditional custodians have made three applications under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Protection Act for 14 significant cultural heritage sites in the mine's footprint.
Indigenous Australians Minister Ken Wyatt said on the ABC's 7.30 report: "I will work with state governments to ensure that we do not repeat the destruction of any Aboriginal site in this country."
It would be unconscionable to destroy the heritage of people who have been on this land for 60,000 years for the profit of a Chinese company.
Self sufficiency in food has become a much more critical pursuit during Covid-19 because of disruption to freight systems.
Australia produces a large food surplus and the Liverpool Plains is part of that production.
There are still unanswered questions about connectivity between the coal seams and the aquifers from which farmers draw water to grow food.
Data logs from BHP bores used to assess the company's Liverpool Plains coal mine have shown significantly greater drawdown of bores than previously expected.
Perhaps that is why BHP did not proceed with its mining plans.
The worst drought in 150 years has shown the inadequacy of Shenhua's modelling, as rainfall has been significantly lower than the company's forecasts.
Too many questions about water modelling remain unanswered.
NSW Nationals' leader John Barilaro has demonstrated a capacity to listen to rural voters in recent months.
Mr Barilaro must toss Shenhua's application out, allowing the farmers, koalas and Indigenous people of the Liverpool Plains to get on with their lives.
Sacrificing these three important Australian icons for a Chinese company is bloody distasteful.
