Nick Minchin, the former Howard government minister who is now consul general in New York, has been lobbying foreign banks reported to have ruled out financing the Abbot Point coal export terminal.



Minchin organised meetings with financial institutions – the names of which have been redacted – last November, according to freedom of information documents obtained by Market Forces, a lobby group that highlights investments in “environmentally destructive projects”.

“Mr Minchin would like to discuss the recent media report on [name redacted’s] investment position on the Abbot Point expansion in Queensland, Australia, and possible concerns about Australia’s management of the Great Barrier Reef,” the unredacted portion of the emails says, dated 5 and 6 November. They request a meeting with “the most appropriate senior person in your organisation”.

Follow-up emails forward “soft copies” of documents that were discussed, most of which were also redacted, but which include press releases from the environment minister, Greg Hunt, maps of the Great Barrier Reef marine park and of the huge Galilee Basin coal fields.

The meeting requests came shortly after Citigroup and Goldman Sachs and other US financial institutions confirmed to a US environmental group in letters cited in the Wall Street Journal that they would avoid investments in Abbot Point.

This followed Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays, HSBC, Credit Agricole and Deutsche Bank ruling out investments earlier last year.

The Australian government has conducted a major lobbying effort to convince the Unesco world heritage committee not to place the Great Barrier Reef on the world heritage property “in danger” list, with the impact of the Abbot Point coal port – to export coal from the massive Galilee Basin reserves – one of the committee’s concerns.

It reacted angrily to a speech by the US president, Barack Obama, during last year’s G20 conference in Brisbane in which he pointed out that climate change, if not addressed, could threaten “the incredible natural glory of the Great Barrier Reef”.

The foreign minister, Julie Bishop, responded that the president appeared to have “overlooked” that Australia was “demonstrating world’s best practice in working with the World Heritage Committee to ensure that the Great Barrier Reef is preserved for generations to come”.

Julien Vincent, a spokesman for Market Forces, said he believed foreign affairs officials “should not be lobbying banks to risk their finances and reputations by investing in projects that have unacceptable environmental risks and don’t stack up economically”.

Ships must pass through the reef to access the port and it is being upgraded to a capacity of 70m tonnes of coal a year. In the 2013-14 financial year 30m tonnes of coal passed through the port.

The port is owned by the Queensland government’s North Queensland Bulk Ports Corporation (NQBPC) and is funded by user fees and the Queensland government.

The freedom of information request asked for any meetings between foreign affairs officials and banks regarding Abbot Point.

A spokeswoman for Bishop said: “It is part of his role as Australia’s consul general to engage with banks in New York about investing in Australia.”