Breeza hall was packed to overflowing with farmers,consultants, media, local and federal politicians, and local indigenous representatives to hear Shenhua Watermark in a stage-managed, feel good, patronising session.

 Questions were posed on access agreements, zero harm responsibility, precautionary mining principles, cross country water and flood flows, power station siting, flora, fauna and aboriginal sites but mostly were deflected or ambiguously answered.

The GHD Shenhua project team personified the engineering project development rather than the notional Exploration Lease and parried questions on drilling or excluding the black soil plains, while simultaneously declaring absolutely no intentions of mining there.

 Many of the audience, having  heard BHP’s similar claims to environmental responsibility at Caroona, were sceptical and wary of Shenhua’s sincerity. Shenhua is described on the Hong Kong stock exchange as a coal and electric power generation company.