And as Australia enters the first month of 2023.......

It is perhaps well to remember that whilst the cronyism, venality and often industrial scale corruption of national governments is well known in history, here in Australia we appear to hold the quaint notion that as a democracy we will not be led by the likes of a Pahlavi, Marcos or Putin. Men who sought not only authoritarian power but also to enrich themselves from the public purse and their nation’s resources.

But does the example of the former Morrison Government and what is happening in the U.S. right now not make one wonder if we here in Australia need to clearly define limits to the powers held by a prime minister and, perhaps also require all members of any federal Cabinet or outer ministry to present their tax returns to the Parliament for formal audit every year they are in government?

For that matter, perhaps it is well past time that members of a federal government are denied access to taxpayer funds to defray court ordered financial penalties & legal costs in relation to defamation or sexual harassment proceedings.

Both Morrison & Trump ignored democratic principles and processes whenever they chose, with Trump’s action being perhaps the more egregious. However, one has to wonder if profiteering from public office was something both national governments did – if not to the same scale at least with the same frequency.

In Australia we will never know because we have such weak mechanisms to monitor or prevent such things. The Parliament often being reluctant to police members' specific pecuniary interests, the Constitution not shutting the door firmly enough on profiting from the Crown and the Register of Members’ Interests being nothing more than a risible fig leaf covering suspected dodgy trusts and self-managed super funds.

Consider former U.S. president Donald Trump’s financial affairs and ask yourselves: Could some of the prime ministers and/or ministers in office between September 2013 and May 2022 have conducted their own financial affairs in a similar manner?

To call the business structure that Donald John Trump built – carried with him into the White House and back out again - ‘Byzantine’ is being kind.

It appears to be a maze of est. 500 inter-related companies, subsidiaries, partnerships, trusts, overseas bank accounts and possibly shells, potentially designed to literally push financial bullshite uphill until a business income loss or tax credit could be established on paper for personal benefit.

During his first presidential election campaign in 2016 Trump self-reported net wealth of almost US$10 billion with debts of at least US$265 million – thought at the time to be achieved by an exaggeration of property and brand values and that his net wealth would be closer to est. US$4.1 billion. There were calls to show his tax return. He promised to reveal his tax returns but didn’t.

As president he continued to falsely complained that his tax affairs were under almost continuous Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audit so it was impossible for him to release them.

Once the nation voted him out of office Trump went to the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to stop the release of his tax returns for the years 2015 through to 2020. A legal battle he lost in TRUMP, DONALD J., ET AL. V. COMM. ON WAYS AND MEANS, ET AL on 22 November 2022.

He was so successful in his resistance up until then that only one incomplete mandatory IRS audit occurred during his presidency - being ordered in September 2019 for the tax year 2016, but never completed and appears to have been quietly abandoned. Trump appointee as IRS Commissioner, Charles P. Rettig, reportedly excused the then president from the mandatory auditing process sometime during his tenure as commissioner.

On 16 June 2021 the U.S. Congress House Committee of Ways and Means wrote to the Treasury Secretary seeking details of the required annual mandatory audits of Trump’s personal tax returns during his presidency, unaware of the true state of affairs.

This letter requested all audit materials from 2015 to 2020 with particular reference to:

whether an IRS examination of the returns took place and the present status of the audits, the applicable statutes of limitations, and the issues considered:

1. The Federal income tax returns of Donald J. Trump (Form 1040),

2. The Federal income tax returns of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust,

3. The Federal income tax returns of DJT Holdings LLC (Form 1065),

4. The Federal income tax returns of DJT Holdings Managing Member LLC (Form 1120-S),

5. The Federal income tax returns of DTTM Operations LLC (Form 1065),

6. The Federal income tax returns of DTTM Operations Managing Member Corp (Form 1120-S),

7. The Federal income tax returns of LFB Acquisitions Corp (Form 1120-S),

8. The Federal income tax returns of LFB Acquisition LLC (Form 1065), and

9. The Federal income tax returns of Lamington Farm Club, LLC d/b/a Trump National Golf Club-Bedminster (Form 1120-S).

Trump’s personal tax returns were joint filings with his wife Melania and listed one son as a dependent. He stated his main source of income was derived from “Management Services”, “Aviation”, “Speaking Engagements”, “Real Estate”, “Golf”, “Ice Skating Rink”, and “Restaurant”.

For a man who repeatedly bragged about his business acumen and wealth in the billions, his 2015 personal and business tax returns indicated that he carried forward business loses of US$105.15 million and he and his wife declared a 2015 calendar year joint negative income of $31.7 million leaving a nominal tax bill of $0.

So by 2015 either he was fast approaching the need for yet another strategic corporate bankruptcy or he had applied the most ‘creative’ accountancy when dealing with the U.S. IRS for that year and the following five years.

Either way, once in the Oval Office Trump appears to have continued to follow his own unique tax return template so that by 2020 he was still paying low tax or no tax – apparently due in part to sizeable business income losses at two of the nine entities whose tax returns were requested by the House Committee on Ways and Means – DJT Holdings Managing Member LLC and DTTM Operations LLC. It is interesting to note that 2020 was also a year devoid of charitable donations by Mr. & Ms. Trump and, it seems that there is some suspicion that previous charitable donation figures may be largely unsupported by appropriate documentation.

Page 2 of the House Committee on Ways and Means Final Report spells out some specific accounting concerns:

• Charitable contributions—whether the 2015 conservation easement deduction of $21 million and other large donations reported on the Schedule A were supported by required substantiation.

• Verification of Net Operating Loss Carryover Schedule—whether the amount of net operating loss carryover in 2015 of $105,157,825 and future years was proper.

• Unreimbursed partnership/S corporation expenses—whether the terms of the partnership agreements supported unreimbursed expense deductions totaling $27 million over six years.

• Related party loans—whether loans made to the former President’s children are loans or disguised gifts that could trigger gift tax.

• Cost of goods sold deductions by DJT Holdings—whether these deductions of about $126.5 million over five years is appropriate when it is not clear what DJT Holdings is selling from the face of the return.

• LFB Acquisition LLC—whether there is any support for changes in the management fees and general and administrative expenses of LFB Acquisition that were significantly higher in 2017 ($1.9 million and $2.8 million, respectively) than 2016 ($750,000 and $549,000, respectively) and 2018 ($707,000 and $570,000, respectively).

In fact when it comes to actually paying personal income tax Donald and Melania Trump paid US$641,951 tax in 2015, $US$750 in 2016, $US$750 in 2017, US$999,466 in 2018, US$133,445 in 2019 and US$0 in 2020, claiming a refund of US$5,468,593.

Then there is the matter of the two shell companies set up by Trump’s then personal attorney Michael Cohen in 2016, Resolution Consultants LLC and Essential Consultants LLC. The former allegedly created for the US$120,000 purchase and then suppression of a story by former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal about her involvement with Trump and the latter created to pay US$130,000 to former adult-film star Stephanie Clifford, professionally known as Stormy Daniels.

A Delaware state judge ordered the dissolution of Essential Consultants LLC and Resolution Consultants LLC in October 2020.

It has been reported that Trump had claimed the second personal expense of $130,000 as a business expense though whether he did that in his 2016 tax returns or later I have been unable to ascertain.

It is noted that, in the three years from 2017 to 2019 Trump donated the annual US$400 million presidential salary “solely for public purposes” in order to get a back a combined total of US$1,200 million as a deduction on his tax bills, according to The Washington Post.

As for an overview of Trump’s business practices…..

To quote Page 5 of the House Committee on Ways and Means’ 20 December 2022 Final Report:

Numerous investigative reports have revealed that the former President, through the complex arrangements of his personal and business finances, has engaged in aggressive tax strategies and decades-long tax avoidance schemes, including taking a questionable $916 million deduction, using a grantor trust to control assets, manipulating tax code provisions pertaining to real estate taxes, and extensively using pass-through entities. Media reports have also revealed that he benefited from massive conservation easements, and that certain of his golf courses failed to properly account for wages paid to employees, raising questions about compliance with payroll and Social Security tax laws. As President, he took pride in “brilliantly” maneuvering the tax laws to his personal benefit. Even as he was championing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the former President referred to the tax code as “riddled with loopholes” for “special interests—including myself.”

BACKGROUND

The House Committee on Ways and Means “REPORT ON THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE'S MANDATORY AUDIT PROGRAM UNDER THE PRIOR ADMINISTRATION (2017-2020” Final Report of 20 December 2022 can be found at:

https://waysandmeans.house.gov/sites/democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/files/documents/2022.12.20%20Final%20Report%20House%20Ways%20and%20Means.pdf

On 30 December 2022 the House Committee on Ways and Means released a zip file containing all Donald John Trump’s personal & business tax returns via Attachment E. Links to the full range of documents the Committee has released can be found at the bottom of this document at:

https://waysandmeans.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/ways-and-means-committee-votes-release-investigation-irs-s-mandatory

The rape of north-east New South Wales continues

 

Linnaeus Estate, Byron Bay
IMAGE: http://linnaeus.com.au/

Echo, 7 November 2022:

Mayor, I agree, let’s set the record straight. Here’s a fact: the community was denied the right to know about the Linnaeus Estate rezoning to Mixed Use Development. The 25 August 2016 Council agenda reveals that there was no report to Council to endorse the change from Education, as required, and doesn’t include any information about the Linnaeus Estate zone change.

In September 2015 Council resolved to change the zone label from Education Establishment to Private Education Facility. It had been zoned restrictively for Education since 1990. So why was it exhibited with the broad term, ‘Multi Use Development’ in 2016? It’s not a fact that Parliamentary Counsel recommended the change, and if so, why wasn’t that reported? In April 2020 a further report admitted a ‘fundamental error’ that the zone allows Community Title (CT).

All in, a massive increase in development potential without the community knowing.

This represents a lack of procedural fairness, a denial of the community’s right to know about the changes for this significant land.

Recently, a further poor process for the Ecotourism development application (DA).

Who benefits? Not the community and not the environment.

Who’s to blame? Perhaps a council that fails to question the processes we rely on. Byron community Deserves Better.

Jan Barham, Broken Head, Former Byron Shire mayor

BACKGROUND

ECHO, 10 May 2021:

Community concern over the current development application (DA: 10.2021.170.1) for Linnaeus Estate in Broken Head has led to detailed analysis of the DA.

A key point of contention is the impact of the proposed development on the Nationally Critically Endangered Ecological Community (EEC), Littoral Rainforest at the site.

According to the Broken Head Protection Committee (BHPC), the DA seeks to clear an area of Littoral Rainforest as identified in the Biodiversity Assessment.

They point out that the 2019 Federal Government Recovery Plan under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) for the EEC has not been referenced in the application.

As a result the BHPC are calling for ‘the proposal to be referred to the Federal Government owing to the likely impact on the EEC due to the proposed change of use for the site and the associated intensification of impacts.’

However, the clearing of littoral rainforest has been disputed by one of the Linnaeus Estate representatives Brandon Saul, who told The Echo, ‘The Biodiversity Assessment you refer to clearly indicates the project has been carefully planned so as to avoid all mapped rainforest on the site. Put simply, no SEPP (State Environment Planning Policy) mapped rainforest will be cleared.

Mr Saul acknowledges that there will be an area of 0.44ha cleared, but stated that ‘The calculated compensation planting for this impact is 1,670 trees, but we will be planting a lot more.’

Around eighty objectors to the project rallied on the beach in front of the proposed site Friday morning….

ECHO, 27 February 2020:

A public meeting to discuss a ‘low-scale wellbeing retreat’ development proposal, at a gated beachside estate, situated between Byron Bay and Lennox Head will be held at the Broken Head Community Hall on Sunday March 1, from 4pm.

Council staff have told Echonetdaily the Linnaeus Estate DA will go before the Northern Regional Planning Panel.

While a DA is yet to be lodged, it has stirred neighbours into action.

According to the owners, ‘The 111.2 hectare property is covered by a combination of special activities – mixed use, environmental, private education and some rural zonings. While the zoning allows for tourism, the property is currently only approved for private education.

‘The application will seek to continue with current uses, as well as establish a low-scale eco-retreat, incorporating the existing facilities – pool, communal buildings and tennis court. The pool area would be upgraded with wellness facility (spa), toilets and showers and an evacuation building, back of house (office space, staff amenities and parking), bin and storage area and garden shed would be constructed.

‘The application proposes that 11 approved, but unbuilt, units with a combined floor space of 2,388m2 not be erected. That instead, 33 new two-person cabins/treehouses with a combined floor space of 1,862m2 be constructed for eco-retreat guests’.

Former Greens mayor and NSW MLC, Jan Barham, has flagged her concerns, which range from climate change impacts, foreseeable risk of future erosion and liability of Council.

Barham said, ‘It is unbelievable, with the coastal problems Council has been dealing with for decades, that in 2020, Council would create new lots in a coastal risk area, especially when they have declared a climate emergency.

‘There is also the likelihood of a repeat of historical events such as cyclones and east coast lows that could ravage this section of coast, and with Council supporting the new zonings in the risk area, there are serious consequences.

‘Disturbingly the proposal has identified as per the staff report: “15 lots in the coastal erosion zone,” but states that this will be dealt with by conditions of consent for any of the structures to comply with the relocatable provisions of the LEP and DCP.’

Developer replies

One of the developers, Brandon Saul, has hosed down what he says are misunderstandings about the proposal and process.

He told Echonetdaily that the proposal will not increase the number of people staying onsite ‘above what has already been adopted in the Rural Land Use strategy’.

Responding to queries as to expected numbers, he says ‘I suspect we’d be lucky to get 20 people at a time interested in the type of things we’d be looking to present’…..

Echonetdaily also asked, ‘Presumably this rezoning can be a catalyst for expanded operations in the future – ie a thin edge of the wedge?’

Saul replied, ‘We are not asking Council to re-zone the property. Tourism is already a permissible use on the land we propose to use for our retreat. That said, the “thin end of the wedge” argument represents a valid concern.

‘On that point, I’d encourage those that are concerned to take a closer look at the site and our proposal. While Linnaeus is a large parcel of land, most of it is not suitable for development and never will be. Much of it has already been voluntarily earmarked for ecological preservation under the council’s new “e zone” process and much of it is low lying grassland, not suitable to development…..

Note: Property developer Brandon Saul describes himself as "Serial entrepreneur with an interest in music, art, architecture, finance, technology, event management, social marketing and property development". He is currently a director of North Byron Parkands and Principal & Managing Director of The Mixed Media Group according to his Linkedin entry.

Prime Minister Morrison may no longer be able to successfully hide politically inconvenient advice/facts from the national electorate

The Saturday Paper, 14 August 2021:

The prime minister may no longer be able to use a special one-man cabinet committee to so readily conceal government advice from public view, after a judge rejected it as a way to keep national cabinet’s deliberations secret.

Contrary to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s insistence, a ruling by Justice Richard White in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) confirmed that all working documents for the meetings of federal, state and territory leaders are accessible under freedom of information law.

The government cannot cover them retrospectively by taking them to federal cabinet either, because their legal status is based on their purpose when they are created.

The ruling potentially has implications beyond national cabinet because of the mechanism Prime Minister Scott Morrison used to extend federal cabinet’s secrecy provisions. That mechanism is the cabinet office policy committee, or COPC.

Since creating it in 2019, Morrison has used this committee, of which he is the only permanent member, to extend cabinet confidentiality over anything he wants shielded from public view.

He simply declares particular meetings to be configurations of the policy committee and asserts cabinet secrecy over their deliberations. This is how he claimed cabinet secrecy when the old Council of Australian Governments was renamed “national cabinet” last year.

But Justice White ruled that simply calling national cabinet a federal cabinet committee did not make it one. He confirmed that a cabinet committee featured members of a single cabinet, from a single government and parliament. While he did not rule out external members, he found that having one federal cabinet minister was not enough.

It’s expected the senate’s Covid-19 inquiry will now seek to have numerous documents handed over, after various departments first refused access to them, citing cabinet secrecy via COPC. [my yellow highlighting]

Justice White was ruling on an application to the AAT by independent senator Rex Patrick, made after the prime minister’s department rejected two freedom of information (FOI) requests last year.

“Fundamentally, what he’s done, is to create a device that he hopes will bring all these entities under the umbrella. But it is a device and it’s an illusory device.”

Read the full article here.

On 8 April 2020, the Senate resolved to establish a Select Committee on COVID-19 to inquire into the Australian Government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Thus far public hearings have been held between 23 April 2020 and 31 July 2021 and two interim reports have been produced to date. This Inquiry is due to present its final report on or before 30 June 2022.

The committee has not set a due date for submissions and has decided it will consider submissions provided throughout the inquiry. Submissions can be sent using the Senate's online submission system or they can be emailed to the committee.

An audit of the funding arrangements for the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has found they threaten its "independent status"

 

ABC News, 20 October 2020:

An audit of the funding arrangements for the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has found they threaten its "independent status" because the Premier can "restrict access" to the money it receives.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian ordered a review into funding models of the ICAC along with other key agencies including the Electoral Commission, the Ombudsman and the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission.

The Auditor-General Margaret Crawford has handed down her findings, a week after Ms Berejiklian gave evidence to the ICAC which is investigating her former boyfriend and MP Daryl Maguire.

"The current approach to determining annual funding for the integrity agencies presents threats to their independent status," the report concluded.

"The report argues these risks are not mitigated sufficiently under the current financial arrangements."

The Auditor-General also found that the funding was not "transparent" and "there are no mechanisms for the agencies to question or challenge decisions made".

The ICAC, along with the other agencies, receives its revenue through the annual budget process.

But the Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC) and the NSW Treasury have restricted its funding through "efficiency dividends" and budget-saving measures.

The report says the DPC and NSW Treasury have interpreted legislation so that the full funding approved by Parliament doesn't have to be provided.

"This interpretation leads to the view that a Premier can restrict access to appropriation funding that was approved by Parliament," the Auditor-General found.

The agencies can ask the DPC for additional money to conduct its investigations and the ICAC has made requests on several occasions, mostly to cover large scale public hearings.

The Auditor-General has raised concerns with this model, noting that it’s "the only mechanism available" and "it could be seeking additional funding to investigate a senior government official".

The report found there were no criteria or guidelines for seeking extra funding, so "very little transparency".

"The process available to ICAC to request additional funding outside the annual budget creates further risks to its independence," the Auditor-General said.

"Some of these proposals were rejected without reasons being provided."....

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Will Scotty From Marketing's pet National COVID-19 Coordination Commission recommend lifting the Coal Seam Gas Moratorium in place across the NSW Northern Rivers region?

"Nev Power: The Prime Minister 'rang me ... and said your country needs you.' "  [Financial Review, 3 April 2020]

On 20 March 2020 Australian Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison created the National COVID-19 Coordination Commission (NCCC) to “ coordinate advice to the Australian Government on actions to anticipate and mitigate the economic and social impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic” and “advise the Prime Minister on all non-health aspects of the pandemic response”.

This is a list of NCCC commission members and key staff for the period 23 March to 22 September 2020 with remuneration for their services where known:

Chairman

Neville Power, Deputy Chairman of Strike Energy Ltd an oil and gas exploration company – remuneration by PM&C contract $294,079.50. Power has announced he is temporarily stepping aside from his position at Strike Energy to avoid perceptions of conflict of interest. However, he appears to be retaining 12,612,885 fully paid Strike Energy shares (worth in the vicinity of $2.4 milllion) & options on 6 million more held by his own Myube discretionary investment trust.

Deputy Chairman

David Thodey, Chairman CSIRO – paid expenses only

Commissioners

Greg Combet, consultant, Chairman of IFM Investors and Industry Super Australia - remuneration by PM&C contract $118,800

Jane Halton, board member ANZ, Clayton Utz, Crown Resorts, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, US Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation and

chairman of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, COTA, Crown Sydney and Vault Systems - remuneration by PM&C contract $118,800

Paul Little, property developer, Chairman and Founder of the Little Group, Chairman of the Australian Grand Prix Corporation and Skalata Ventures - remuneration by PM&C contract $108,000 for 2 days per week

Catherine Tanna, Managing Director of EnergyAustralia, board member Reserve Bank of Australia and Business Council of Australia – remuneration by PM&C contract $54,000 for 1 day per week

Key Staff

Peter Harris, public policy adviser, CEO of NCCC – remuneration N/K

Executive Assistant to Chairman NCCC – remuneration by PM&C contract $73,000 paid into the same Myube discretionary investment trust as the remuneration received by NCCC Chairman.

Advisors

Andrew N. Liveris, special advisor to NCCC, board member IBM, Worley Parsons, Saudi Aramco, on advisory board of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and NEOM, controversial former Chairman & CEO of Dow Chemical and Trump supporter– remuneration N/K

For the more than $885,479 in taxpayer dollars spent on this commission over a six month period, Australia gets a website of sorts pmc.gov.au/nccc along with a Twitter account NCCCgovau and, what is shaping up to be a lack of transparency and accountability concerning advice this commission gives behind closed doors to government.

According to The Guardian on 21 May 2020:

A leaked draft report by a manufacturing taskforce advising the National Covid-19 Coordination Commission (NCCC) recommends the Morrison government make sweeping changes to “create the market” for gas and build fossil fuel infrastructure that would operate for decades.

Its vision includes Canberra underwriting an increased national gas supply, government agencies partnering with companies to accelerate development of new fields such as the Northern Territory’s vast Beetaloo Basin, and states introducing subsidy schemes for gas-fired power plants.

It says the federal government should help develop gas pipelines between eastern states and the north, and potentially a $6bn trans-Australian pipeline between the east and west, by either taking an equity position, minority share or underwriting investments.

The taskforce, headed by….Saudi Aramco board member Andrew Liveris, positions lower-cost gas as the answer to building a transformed manufacturing sector that it says could support at least 85,000 direct jobs, and hundreds of thousands more indirectly.

But it does not consider alternatives to gas, or what happens if greenhouse gas emissions are cut as promised under the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Gas is usually described as having half the emissions of coal when burned, though recent studies have suggested it could be more.

The Liveris report does not mention climate change, Australia’s emissions reduction targets or the financial risk, flagged by institutions in Australia and overseas, of investing in fossil fuel as emissions are cut.

While several assessments have found renewable energy backed by storage is now the cheapest option for new electricity generation, the report says gas is “key to driving down electricity cost and improving investment in globally competitive advanced industry”.

Its focus is consistent with the NCCC chairman, Nev Power, a former Fortescue Metals chief and current board member at gas company Strike Energy, who has said in interviews that cheap gas would be critical to Australia’s future. Gas has been strongly backed by the prime minister, Scott Morrison, and the energy and emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, who has argued for a gas-fired recovery from the pandemic.

According to Friends of the Earth Australia the leaked document also suggests lifting the coal seam gas moratorium in New South Wales, which is an issue I’m sure the Northern Rivers region will be keeping a close eye on. 

UPDATE 

The Guardian, 5 June 2020: 

Officials from Scott Morrison’s department are refusing to release conflict of interest disclosures from members of the National Covid-19 Coordination Commission so they can be scrutinised by the public because the declarations are provided “in confidence”. 

The departmental pushback has come in responses to questions on-notice from the Senate committee examining the government’s response to the pandemic. 

Controversy has been escalating about the potential for conflicts of interest among the commissioners handpicked by the prime minister to provide advice at the height of the coronavirus crisis. 

The high-powered coordination commission, headed by the former Fortescue Metals chief Nev Power, has a broad remit, advising the government on all non-health aspects of its pandemic response. 

But concerns have been raised about the lack of transparency of the group’s deliberations, and the absence of a conventional governance framework for a taxpayer-funded enterprise. 

The NCCC has a budget of more than $5m.... 

The Guardian, 3 May 2020:

When the Daily Telegraph reported last week that a fertiliser plant in Narrabri being advanced by a West Australian businessman had topped the list of the projects being promoted by the National Covid Coordination Commission, there was some surprise. 

Vikas Rambal and Perdaman Chemicals and Fertilisers are not exactly household names, and the controversial Narrabri coal seam gas project – which would provide the cheap gas that the fertiliser project depends on – is yet to be approved by the New South Wales government.... 

Rambal has not yet sought planning approval of the $1.9bn project and the only tangible signs are press releases promising 700 jobs and a non-binding agreement with the coal seam gas project’s owner, Santos..... 

The Daily Telegraph, 24 April 2020:

Mr Rambal’s plant would create up to 800 jobs during construction and 70 to 80 permanent­ roles in Narrabri, supplying farmers in a 300km radius. “It’s a huge project,”  Mr Rambal, who is also advancing a $4.5 billion fertiliser plant in WA, told The Daily Telegraph. 

He said Mr Power’s Commission could help by picking up the phone to politicians to remove roadblocks and speed up approvals. 

Mr Taylor said making more fertiliser was a “cracking opportunity” for Australia and would help achieve the government’s goal of growing agriculture to a $100 billion-a-year industry by 2030. 

He said he was focused on making more gas available. 

“I like to think of the other side of COVID-19 as being a gas-fired recovery,” Mr Taylor said. 

“We want to see the NSW government get on with (the approvals process for the Santos project).”  In January, Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she wanted a final decision on the proposal by June 30. 

That now looks unlikely. The Independent Planning Commission is yet to receive a referral from the NSW Department of Planning. The IPC will take 12 weeks to make its ruling. 

It is unclear if the COVID-19 Commission is now attempting to hurry up the Department­ of Planning.....