Shock jock Alan Jones has warned NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian that her head is "in a noose" over her government's mining policy in the Liverpool Plains, one that will tighten once "the truckies and the farmers start", in an extraordinarily fiery radio interview.
Ms Berejiklian's government announced on Wednesday it would spend $260 million buying back about 51 per cent of a mining exploration licence over an area encompassing the Liverpool Plains and prime agricultural land, leaving only the adjacent ridges remaining.
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'You put your head in a noose': Jones to premier
Sydney shock jock Alan Jones has gone toe-to-toe with NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian over a decision to hand back more than $250 million to Chinese miner Shenhua.
Jones, a fierce critic of Chinese state-owned company Shenhua's proposed Watermark coal mine, on Thursday said he believed the limitations would not protect farmland and continued to risk polluting its water.
"The Shenhua rubbish has the potential to bring down [your] government," Jones said in an interview on Sydney radio station 2GB, part owned by Fairfax Media (which also publishes this website).
![Gladys Berejiklian said the government had taken legal advice that showed it had no option but to buy back the licence.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170714021017im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/o/m/7/i/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gxacy1.png/1499947318948.jpg)
"You put your head in a noose and, once the truckies and the farmers start, that noose will be tightened.
"I will be prepared to campaign across the length and breadth of [NSW against] a Premier who is attacking the Liverpool Plains.
"Granting a licence to an outfit owned by the government of communist China. What a lovely thought."
Jones further said the government could have simply cancelled Shenhua's licence without repaying any money because it had not begun working on the site, something its deal with the government required.
![Broadcaster Alan Jones is a fierce critic of Chinese state-owned company Shenhua's proposed Watermark mine](http://web.archive.org./web/20170714021017im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/j/o/j/7/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gxacy1.png/1499947318948.jpg)
Ms Berejiklian said the government had taken legal advice that showed it had no option but to buy back the licence because Shenhua had no chance to start work.
"We looked at every single option we had," she said. "The money we are using to buy back that bit of licence means farmers will be able to use it for prime agricultural land."
![The government says Liverpool Plains farmlands are set to be protected further from the activities of Shenhua.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170714021017im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/x/9/h/1/v/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gxacy1.png/1499947318948.jpg)
Jones retorted: "I can't listen to this stupidity. I can't listen to this stupidity."
Asked about her at a press conference later on Thursday, Ms Berejiklian described her exchange with Jones as "robust and colourful and a day in the job".
"It wasn't anything that I didn't expect, so I'm completely relaxed," she said.
Jones was mired in controversy about five years ago after he suggested that former Prime Minister Julia Gillard should be "shoved" in a "chaff bag" and taken "far out to sea".
In the same speech, he suggested Ms Gillard's recently-deceased father had "died of shame".
Those remarks, recorded secretly at a function, led to a major backlash from Jones' sponsors and an apology.
A year earlier, he had addressed a "Convoy of No Confidence" protest of truck drivers against Ms Gillard's government.
Jones compared previous premier Mike Baird to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But Mr Baird continued to court a relationship and visited Jones' harbourside apartment for dinner on the eve of his backdown over the banning of greyhound racing in NSW, a policy against which Jones had campaigned.
Shenhua, a state-owned Chinese mining company, paid $300 million to the previous Labor government in 2008 for the right to explore for coal on the area and had plans for a mine that would have covered an area larger than Sydney.
That exploration licence was extended by the current Coalition state government, which, along with the federal government, gave the $1-billion plus, 268-million tonne open cut coal mine project planning approval.
But Ms Berejiklian stressed on Thursday the company had not applied for a mining licence.
"They'd have to go through 100 separate conditions and 20 separate plans," the Premier said of any plans to actually begin extracting coal.
"Yesterday's move was unprecedented by a government given all the legal issues we face.
"There will not be anything allowed that does not protect the integrity of the Liverpool Plains."