At the Branxton Community Center in New South Wales’ Hunter Valley last week, local resident Janet Murray was given five minutes to talk about plans for the state’s largest coal mine expansion.
Dozens of people gathered before her to share their views on whether the 19-year extension proposed by Hunter Valley Operation (HVO) should be accepted.
As a former blast furnace operations supervisor at Newcastle Steelworks until its closure in 1999, Mr Murray has “first-hand experience” of working in an industry facing major change.
She understood that the prospect of continued employment was “a very emotional issue in our community and can be very stressful for those directly involved.”
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Nevertheless, Mr Murray said Glencore and Yancoal’s joint proposal to mine an additional 430 million tonnes of coal should be rejected.
“I’m here today because I’m concerned about the quality of life our children will have in a hotter world and the state of the natural world. I oppose this extension,” she said.
In his short speech, Murray cut to the heart of his personal struggles in the room and his challenges with the state’s independent planning commission. What kind of community will survive in the future?
target not reached
According to Glencore and Yancoal, the open-pit project near Singleton consists of two mining areas, the North Mine and the South Mine, and directly employs approximately 1,500 people.
Planning permission for the northern mine is due to expire this year, but HVO is seeking permission to mine at the site until 2045 and at the southern site until 2042.
This would be the state’s largest coal project based on projected production and would cause about 800 million tons of additional greenhouse gas emissions, most of which come from burning coal overseas, at a time when fossil fuels are causing dangerous global warming.
In New South Wales, the Independent Net Zero Commission warned the Minns government last year that coal mine expansion would conflict with the state’s statutory climate change targets to cut emissions by 50% by 2030, 70% by 2035 and net-zero by 2050.
This week he warned New South Wales was moving further away from meeting its 2030 and 2035 targets and would need to work two-and-a-half times faster to reach them.
The Minns Government has banned greenfield coal mines, but the state’s new coal strategy supports extension and expansion, although the Net Zero Commission says the move is “more symbolic than material” given that no such mines have been approved since 2018.
There are nearly 20 such projects proposed in New South Wales. HVO is the largest of that group and the first to go before the Planning Commission for a decision.
Whatever the committee decides, it will have significant implications not only for Hunter and Newcastle, but also for the state.
“It’s not an abstract discussion.”
The Planning Commission’s public forum is unique in Australia. These allow community members to honestly express their opinions and experts to present evidence and answer questions before a committee that considers all testimony before reaching a decision. More than 130 speakers expressed their positions on the HVO proposal at three public hearings held over the past two weeks.
Robin Williams of the Mining and Energy Union spoke in favor of the project at the second public hearing, saying the decision was about the workers who depend on HVO for jobs, the contractors that supply the mine, and the “families and communities that depend on the wages spent in these towns.”
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“For many of us who work and live in the Hunter, this is not an abstract discussion about policy,” Williams said.
“The question is whether areas like Singleton and Muswellbrook continue to have secure jobs, thriving local economies and opportunities for generations to come.”
Mr Williams said the Hunter was already facing major economic change as a coal mining region. Muswellbrook’s Mt Arthur coal mine is scheduled to close in 2030, and other coal operations are expected to wind down in the coming decades.
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“Without approval for this project, the closure of HVO will create another major economic shock at the very time our communities are already facing profound changes,” Williams said.
Jeff Stephenson, a maintenance engineer at HVO and one of several workers appearing before the committee, said the threat of mine closure “creates a great deal of uncertainty and anxiety.”
But Greg Mullins, former chief of the NSW Fire and Rescue Service and member of the Climate Emergency Leaders, told the panel the government’s No. 1 duty was “to keep the public safe”.
“The illusory short-term benefits of approving this extension will help a few, but ultimately it will harm everyone, especially those without a voice and those not yet born,” he said.
“This is too high a price to pay for an industry in terminal decline.”
natural disaster
For those who provided evidence, the climate crisis is a reality, not an abstract future concept or policy.
People who have lost their homes and businesses to fires and floods across the state since 2019, residents in Newcastle who face higher insurance premiums due to flood risk, and pensioners in the Hunter Valley who are grappling with mold and sinking support bridges at home after too many torrential rains have all told the committee of the clear risk of increased damage if the project goes ahead.
Kathy McKenzie spoke about the bushfires in Wollemi National Park in 2019, followed by flooding in 2022, leaving long stretches of Putty Road still in need of repair. Kelly Walker, a former Hunter coal engineer and wildlife conservationist, detailed how the heat wave caused local flying foxes to become “weakened, dehydrated, lethargic, comatose and eventually fall to the ground”.
“If you don’t get there right away, you could be dead within 20 minutes,” she says.
Mid-North Coast resident Fiona Lee, who lost her home in the 2019 Black Summer fires, told the committee that her local council had been forced to apply for disaster funding “16 times in the six years since Black Summer alone”.
“Glencore and Yancoal continue to make huge profits by fueling wildfires, floods and other extreme weather events, while ordinary people like me and my family are sacrificing everything, and they are paying nothing for it,” she said.
Mr. Murray, a former steel worker, and other opponents of the project argued that it was the responsibility of coal companies to plan a just transition for workers.
“When I look at the people who are working, I feel really bad that they’re all in a situation where they may have to change jobs, change jobs, or even lose their jobs,” Manning Valley resident Jane Watson said.
“But there have been many times throughout our history where we have had to change, and we have had to change for the benefit of everyone.”
On the final day of public hearings this week, the committee was told that a condition of HVO’s original planning consent, which required it to develop an exit strategy, had been removed. Sue Higginson, the Green Party’s environment spokeswoman and former environmental lawyer, told the committee that the project would likely face a legal challenge if approved.
The committee’s decision is expected in early September.
