Waiting game: Who will go in the New Acland Mine job cuts?

Father of six Andy Scouller has worked at the New Acland Mine for 15 years. Now the mine, which has been operating for more than a century, is on the brink of closure.

Andy Scouller was just one of around 60 deeply worried workers who clocked on for the 6am shift at the New Acland Mine outside Toowoomba yesterday.

Andy, 44, a father of six, was suddenly unsure his career with the New Hope-owned mine, which began 15 years go when he signed on as a maintenance fitter, was the long term proposition he thought it was.

Andy Scouller has been at the New Acland Mine for 15 years. Picture: Annette Dew

“The frustrating thing for workers is there doesn’t to be any real reason for this,’’ he said as the mine began redundancy procedures with a view to cutting 150 of the 300 strong workforce.

“There is plenty of coal to mine - good, high energy, low ash coal that our customers want.’’

Now the mine’s Wash Plant Manager, Andy says New Hope has been a good employer, creating a family friendly and community minded workplace which allows him to knock off early if his volunteer work with the auxiliary fire brigade at nearby Pitstworth requires his presence.

“You show a willingness to put in the effort and New Hope will back you all the way,’’ he says.

But the future for him and his wife, a qualified special needs teacher in a Toowoomba school, now looks tenuous, with none of the mine’s workers quite sure who will go in the job cuts.

“This is not just about 150 jobs, its about 150 families.’’

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says the Government will not approve the mine’s long awaited expansion until proceedings in the Court of Appeal have been finalised, and urged New Hope to “respect the process”.

But mine executives are stunned at the government’s apparent reluctance to back the expansion after months of signalling a renewed commitment to the resources industry following Labor’s loss in the May federal election.

Mine manager Dave O'Dwyer. Picture: Annette Dew

A clearly frustrated mine manager, Dave O’Dwyer, said the mine had worked on a September 1 deadline for approval of the expansion.

Without an answer, it had no choice but to start the redundancy process to cull 150 jobs by October.

Communications lines with the State Government had been open and productive, right up to the Premier’s office, he said.

New Hope executives thought they had been having a “good conversation’’ up until September 1.

“We felt we were moving in the right direction but when crunch time came they were just not there,’’ he said.

“We tried to contact them to find out what was going on but ultimately, we got a deafening silence.”

The mine, which has provided coal more than a century, simply had to expand or close down, he said.

That could happen in as little as 18 months, and then all jobs are gone.