A China-backed company mining in South Australia's Woomera Prohibited Area appears to be in breach of the legal undertakings it made to win access to Australia’s most sensitive military testing range.
People familiar with the mine say the financier, JiuJiang, now controls all aspects of the day-to-day operations, even though it has apparently shelved expansion plans in the knowledge that any attempt to do so will trigger revocation of its mining permit. Senator Rex Patrick:"The Chinese government would never allow an Australian company to set up shop next to China’s secret military test facilities."Although the JiuJiang Group claims to be privately owned, its chairman, Zhao Yujiang, is a prominent Hebei provincial member of the Chinese Communist Party. He is also a deputy to China's 12th National People's Congress and has travelled abroad as part of Chinese government delegations.
CU-River Mining last year negotiated a 10-year expansion to its lease over to the Woomera mine. As part of JiuJiang's backing for CU-River, there is a plan for a disused power station at Port Augusta to be turned into a shipping terminal to load iron ore from Cairn Hill on ships bound for China. South Australian Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick, who has been pursuing the issue of mining within the Woomera site in Parliament and through the Freedom of Information Act, said the latest revelations about potential security threats and permit breaches warranted an immediate inquiry.