FED: Mine opponents claim success in discouraging investors

AAP General News (Australia)
12-14-1998
FED: Mine opponents claim success in discouraging investors

CANBERRA, Dec 14 AAP - Pressure from anti-mine activists was forcing investors to pull out
of the two companies in charge of the Jabiluka uranium mine, the Wilderness Society said
today.

More than $2.5 million of shares in project manager Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) Ltd
and parent company North Ltd had been sold in the past six months, society national campaign
director Alec Marr said.

More investors were expected to follow and the activists would increase pressure on project
financier Westpac to withdraw from the Northern Territory project.

"We are currently in negotiations with other major shareholders and we believe that future
shareholding selloffs are not too far down the track," Mr Marr told reporters.

"We believe that ultimately, this combined with other elements of the international
campaign to stop the Jabiluka uranium mine will, in the end, force the companies to abandon
this project."

The direct approach to investors by the society and the Mineral Policy Institute (MPI)
follows the failure of efforts at the political level, with the federal government firmly
behind the uranium mine.

Mr Marr, who went to Japan to try to win international support for UNESCO to list Kakadu
National Park as in danger because of the mine, said the NRMA and the Catholic Church were
among those to sell out of the companies.

And James Cook University was considering whether to sell its shares in North.

Australian environmentalists have been working with their overseas counterparts and point
to a European Parliament resolution calling on member states to ban the import of uranium from
Jabiluka.

"We are confident that six or nine months down the track you wont be able to sell the
uranium that comes from this company," Mr Marr said.

"That is simply going to drive all the other elements in the investor community further and
further away. We believe that the combination of all these things is going to force the
abandonment of this project."

Mr Marr said Westpac, as a major financial backer, would come under increased pressure.

"Westpac have a moral and financial responsibility to abandon the Jabiluka uranium mine and
until Westpac fulfil those responsibilities then they can expect greater and greater public
pressure to be brought upon that banking group," he said.

AAP kaw/mfh/it/br

KEYWORD: JABILUKA

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