While Barnaby Joyce has been vociferous in his opposition to the Shenhua mine, the Nationals leader, Warren Truss, has not uttered a word

It has been more than a week since the environment minister, Greg Hunt, agreed to give the tick of approval to the $1.2bn Shenhua open-cut coalmine in the heart of Barnaby Joyce’s New England electorate.



It now goes back for the final approval stages to the NSW Baird government.



The leader of the federal National party that purports to represent country people in general and farmers in particular – Warren Truss – has not uttered one word in public on the 35 sq km mine placed in the Liverpool Plains.



I thought I missed something. So I emailed his office last Friday to ask some basic questions.



Does Warren Truss agree with Barnaby Joyce that the Shenhua mine should not go ahead on prime farmland? If so, did the deputy prime minister argue against it at the cabinet table or undertake any other actions to try to stop the mine? If Truss supports the mine, could he outline why he supports it for the farmers and residents of the Liverpool Plains?

No answer. Truss may support the mine. Or he may not. Presumably he does not feel his country constituents need to know. Like a compliant kelpie, Truss continues to toe the Liberal line.

Abbott told Ray Hadley on Wednesday: “I think we should say let’s go with it.” So Truss goes.



Meanwhile his deputy, Barnaby Joyce, more your average cattle dog, has been put on the chain. It would appear some powerful forces within government are organising against him – forces that go straight to the top.



This is a turf war that could determine the leadership of the National party, the future of the Coalition relationship and the National party’s capacity to attract votes.



So bear with me. It is worth joining the dots over the past two weeks.



Tony Abbott is not without his charms

The day before Joyce’s agriculture white paper was launched, we learned via News Corp journalist Ellen Whinnett that Tony Abbott had begun a “charm offensive” to persuade Truss to stay on as leader “fearing his successor-in-waiting, Barnaby Joyce, is too erratic to be deputy prime minister and acting prime minister when Abbott is out of the country”.



“So determined is Abbott that ‘Trussy’ stay on until after the next election that he recently invited him and his wife, Lyn, to spend a weekend at Kirribilli House in Sydney,” writes Whinnett. “The charm offensive designed to keep Truss around has included inviting Mrs Truss to spend more time in Canberra.”



Barnaby … sit!

The following day on 4 July, Joyce and Abbott launched the white paper in a rural Liberal seat in Victoria – a choice also beyond the National party’s control. (They were simply told.) While Joyce was speaking family farms, Greg Hunt was signing off on a letter to Shenhua, breaking the news that their mine was all good under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act water trigger.



Greg Hunt approves $1.2bn Shenhua coalmine on Liverpool Plains Read more

Joyce spoke to the white paper at the press club on Monday but the major rural audience, delivered through the ABC, was off limits after the Liberals yanked his chain on Q&A. Truss held a rare doorstop to reveal Joyce had been part of the leadership team to decide Q&A was off limits. Truss helpfully suggested perhaps Joyce had a different interpretation. Joyce said nothing.



On 8 July, Joyce learned the Shenhua mine was going ahead. At issue is the water in the Great Artesian Basin, at risk from a mega-mine on a ridge above the Liverpool Plains’ famed black soil. The closest point to the black soil from the mine is 150 metres. Pits will be blasted, potentially creating connections between the pits and the aquifer. More than 150m tonnes of coal will be dug up, creating 600 jobs for construction staff and then 400 to run the mine.



Joyce declared via Facebook – which presumably did not need to go through the PM’s office – that “the world had gone mad” when such a mine could be developed on prime farmland. For the past week, unnamed Liberals and some Nationals have told journalists that Joyce had damaged his claim to be leader. The lesson is clear. Toe the Liberal line or get out.

Hunt says he has placed the most stringent conditions on the Watermark mine though much of the mine design is yet to be completed, including the water management plan.

It’s is like launching yourself to the moon without a plan to get back, one government member told me.

The thing about Shenhua

If ever there was an issue for the National party to master it is land usage and the increasing clash between food production and mining. And yet from the start, at state level and at federal level, the Nationals have been ambivalent.

Here is a massive state-owned mining project, courted by a Labor government which took a $300m licence fee. It was renewed by the NSW Liberal government after the 2011 election. Documents show that in 2011 the former NSW National party leader Andrew Stoner instructed the department of regional infrastructure to send a letter to the planning minister, Brad Hazzard, outlining the benefits of Shenhua’s proposal.



Joyce’s own opposition had been muted at best until Greg Hunt revealed his decision was made last week. And the Coalition has tried to get rid of the “water trigger” legislation itself, the one sliver of power available to the federal government to scrutinise the mine. (This was Abbott’s “one stop shop” promise to devolve environmental approval processes to the states at the 2013 election.) Joyce joined the government to vote to kill the water trigger, though the bill remains stuck in the senate.

Will farmers change votes?

A hard core opposition of farmers on the plains and beyond remain pitted against the mine. Fellow Nationals Fiona Nash and Michael McCormack have backed Joyce, saying they do not believe mines should be on prime agricultural land like the Liverpool Plains. Farmers have threatened legal action. 2GB broadcaster and anti-mine campaigner Alan Jones is white with fury, warning Tony Abbott and Mike Baird that governments can be brought down on single issues.

But locals remain divided. Some farmers have been paid three times the value for their land and some residents are hoping for the promised jobs. Shenhua has been splashing money around town on local causes, negotiating with the local council to spend $18m on community projects over the 30-year life of the mine. Already, Shenhua staff have been delivering Meals on Wheels and taking part in local talent quests. Hell, even the Breeza hall got reverse cycle air-conditioning.

So the political question remains whether the mine will change votes, particularly if former independent and architect of the water trigger Tony Windsor follows through on his threat to run again. In the recent NSW election, the Nationals lost their first ever seat to the Greens (and very nearly two) over the issues of mining and land usage as well as changing demographics on the north coast. But Tamworth National MP Kevin Anderson, whose seat covers the mine area, fought off a challenge from former independent Peter Draper.

While Draper is no Windsor, based on that result any contest between Windsor and Joyce would be line ball.

The guy in the koala suit

In an interesting sidebar, the government has launched a Senate inquiry into environmental organisations and tax deductability. Its terms of reference include examination of “activities undertaken by organisations currently listed on the Register [of environmental organisations] and the extent to which these activities involve on-ground environmental work”.

Queensland LNP senator Matt Canavan recently wrote in the Australian that “some of these organisations are highly active in political debates such as what size coal industry we should have”. He has specifically mentioned fundraising campaigns by Lock the Gate, an environmental organisation which has successfully married farmers with the green movement to oppose mining and coal seam gas.



“However public-spirited the man in the koala suit may think he is, he deserves no louder voice than the man in the hi-vis shirt or the man in the Akubra,” Canavan wrote. “It’s time tax concessions for the environment should return to funding actions of practical benefit to the environment, not to fund partisan political debate.”

The men – and women – in the Akubras

Increasingly, the man in the Akubra is standing next to the man in the koala suit. NSW Greens MLC Jeremy Buckingham has spent years working on the land use issue. Federal Greens senator Larissa Waters introduced a private bill to the Senate in March that said “the Liverpool Plains should be permanently off limits to coal mining and coal seam gas” – a move designed to force National and Liberal senators to show their colours. They dutifully voted against the motion.

Liverpool Plains farmers are receiving widespread support on social media but at this stage, that is not where it counts. Only two Coalition governments (federal and NSW) can do anything about the mine.

And yet again, in the vacuum left by National party leadership on land usage, farmers are left to ponder the value of religiously sticking to one side of politics.

There is nothing in the political rule book that says the National party has to stick up for farmers. There is nothing to stop Warren Truss siding with mining companies, as former National leaders John Anderson and Mark Vaile have done. All people want is a clear statement from the Nationals on the issue so they can vote according to their views.