Blame it on Rio

John Durie sees straight through Treasurer Wayne Swan:

FEDERAL Treasurer Wayne Swan went to extraordinary lengths not to make a ruling on Chinese investment in Australia’s resources industry by partially knocking back the OZ Minerals deal.

His excuse was as lame as they get: the Chinese rescue could not include the Prominent Hill copper and gold mine because it was too close to the defence facility at Woomera in South Australia.

The mine is 162km from the facility and to define it as being of strategic importance is a stretch of extraordinary proportions.

If China or anyone wanted to spy on Woomera, and few would, all you would need to do would be to log on to Google Earth rather than pay more than $4 billion to buy a gold and copper mine…

For a Government that boasts about its good work in helping the country through the recession, this decision says the exact opposite…

Swan’s non-decision has made an already murky part of Government even murkier.

Apparently, Chinese miners are more of a security risk than the Russians.

posted on 29 March 2009 by skirchner in Economics, Foreign Investment

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