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The Crown case was essentially circumstantial, the judge said, based on factors such as an alleged friendship between the couple, lack of investigation of the proposal and Macdonald’s decision to act against the department’s advice. Dhanji said there was insufficient evidence of a deep friendship between the men, but this was not fatal for a conviction.
In his opening statement in court in September, prosecutor Philip Hogan alleged that Macdonald’s decision not to hold a competitive trial for the Doyles Creek license “lost the state tens of millions of dollars in upfront payments” that were being offered at the time. by other mining companies seeking coal exploration licenses in NSW.
The court heard that a subsidiary of BHP paid $91 million for an exploration permit in Caroona in 2006, and that the Chinese company Shenhua paid nearly $300 million for its Watermark exploration permit in the Liverpool Plains in 2008. Both assignments followed a competitive process, Hogan said.
Dhanji said on Tuesday the price of coal was high and Macdonald granted the license to Doyles Creek Mining “not knowing what might have been obtained [for the state in up-front fees] had it gone to a competitive process”.
The court heard that Doyles Creek’s proposal was for a so-called “training mine” but that it was linked to a much larger commercial mine. The area was of interest to other mining companies, Dhanji said.
The Crown had claimed that the training mine was “cover” or “spin” to justify the granting of the license without a competitive process, and Hogan told the court that “of a $200 million commercial mine, only $7 million was awarded to the costs of setting up the training mine”.
Lawyer Ramesh Rajalingam, acting for Macdonald, said in his opening statement that his client had no “improper motive or purpose” in granting the permit.
Maitland, representing herself, told the court: “The whole process of what we did was legitimate and something that would benefit the state.”
Maitland was chairman and shareholder of Doyles Creek Mining when the exploration license was granted. Hogan said a Maitland family business then sold shares in NuCoal, a company Doyles Creek Mining acquired, in 2010 for $6.15 million.