This was published 3 years ago
Call for pantomime of coal politics to end in Upper Hunter
There is much at stake at the Upper Hunter May 22 byelection. Locals want “real talk” about what to do once coal is no longer king.
By Peter Hannam
Fifth-generation farmers Doug and Nic Robertson are out mustering some of the 300 breeder cattle on their property near Scone on a crisp mid-autumn morning, wondering how long their rural idyll can last.
Plans by Japanese trading giant Idemitsu to develop its Gateway project north-west of Muswellbrook in the Upper Hunter would bring an open-cut coal pit right next door.
Nic Robertson joins her husband Doug, with their horse Hamish, as they muster cattle on their property near Scone. Credit: Janie Barrett
“They will literally be out the back from us,” Robertson says after dismounting Hamish his horse and joining Nic for a coffee inside their elegant home Turanville. “That’s of concern for us and our kids.”
The issue of the region’s coal mines and their expansion has been thrust onto centre stage by the byelection triggered after the resignation last month of disgraced Nationals MP Michael Johnsen. The MP quit after the leak of lewd texts he sent during parliamentary debates just days after being accused of raping a sex worker.
There is much at stake in the May 22 byelection. A loss of the long-held Nationals’ seat would throw the Berejiklian government into minority rule. As the Upper Hunter electorate is also home to some of Australia’s biggest coal mines, the jockeying by the major parties on energy and climate policies could also serve as a template for both the next federal and state elections.
So far, the Liberal-National Coalition and Labor campaigns have prioritised coal, with NSW National Party leader John Barilaro promoting it as a “forever” industry and Labor leader Jodi McKay dubbing it “the powerhouse of the economy of the state” and one that shouldn’t be “demonised”.
But the election also gives a chance for local issues to be aired including the loss of prime farmland to mines, the region’s ongoing air-pollution and related health issues, and the climate risks of extracting fossil fuels.
For instance, Robertson, who chairs the Friends of the Upper Hunter group, got to raise his concerns about the rapid expansion of coal mines to Deputy Premier Barilaro at a pub event in Muswellbrook on Wednesday night.
Deputy Premier John Barilaro discusses coal mining with Doug Robertson (right), a farmer and president of the Friends of the Upper Hunter group.Credit: Janie Barrett
Robertson tells the Sun-Herald he was surprised at how receptive Barilaro was: “His language was very different to what we hear from him on the media stage”.
Kirsty O’Connell, also a member of the Friends of the Upper Hunter, credits former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s call for a moratorium on new coal mines in NSW for stirring interest in the issue even though it cost him his week-old appointment as chief climate advisor to the Berejiklian government. “It’s thanks to Malcolm Turnbull that this subject’s being discussed.”
The equivalent of six Adani-sized coal mines are planned for within a few kilometres of Muswellbrook, O’Connell says, although the debate has had nothing like the attention given to the Indian miner’s plan for the controversial Carmichael mine in Queensland.
Kirsty O’Connell, a member of the Friends of the Upper Hunter, says the issue of new coal mines in the region needs more scrutiny.Credit: Janie Barrett
Georgina Woods, the co-ordinator of Lock the Gate – a group that campaigns for a transition out of coal – predicts some voters will tire of the pantomime of politics especially if the show fails to address the hard questions the valley faces.
“The theatre of coal plays for a Sydney audience and a national audience, but it’s effectively squeezing out discussions about the serious strategic, environmental and economic issues facing the Upper Hunter,” Woods says.
“We do need the government to be planning for the sudden closure of mines and making clear it will support workers, communities and the region through that.”
Labor supporters, too, say politicians blithely insisting on the ongoing dominance of coal does not correlate with the conversations around workers’ dinner tables and within their unions.
“The rhetoric in New Zealand is very different,” says Stuart Johnstone, a former miner who spent 15 years across the Tasman in a maritime union before returning to the Hunter two years ago. “Here it seems to be set up very combatively.”
The polarisation, he says, is like one person taking an extreme position on one side of a boat and forcing another to balance it out on the opposite side to avoid it sinking. “We’ve actually got to come to the centre of the boat, and actually be mature, and have that discussion rather than demonise one over the other,” he says.
Labor’s candidate for the Upper Hunter, Jeff Drayton, centre, talks with Sarah Johnstone and her brother Stuart in Singleton.Credit: Janie Barrett
Stuart’s sister Sarah is a Labor branch secretary for Singleton and attended Tuesday’s launch party for Labor’s candidate Jeff Drayton – a coal miner and former deputy mayor of Muswellbrook – in a local park. She says the community recognises the changes cutting coal’s domination are inevitable: “The problem is we don’t know how long it is going to take to get here.”
“Until people can see the practical changes and see the jobs in front of them, when they are given fear tactics by politicians or the media, or business they believe [them],” she says.
At least two candidates will make a case to voters against coal. Upper Hunter councillor Sue Abbott is the Greens candidate and former Dungog mayor Tracy Norman is running as an Independent.
Abbott says most of her rivals are not telling the truth about the future of coal mining in the region.
“It’s so dishonest of the other candidates and the Coalition to pretend we’ll have coal for decades and decades,” she says. “I feel like Cordelia to King Lear [in Shakespeare], telling him how it is and he can’t cope with it.”
The Mount Pleasant mine, far left, and Bengalla mine, right, with the town of Muswellbrook in the distance.Credit: Janie Barrett
Norman says those seeking to win the seat “need to be talking about transitioning to a new low-carbon economy”.
“Pure economics is going to drive this and the rest of the world is certainly trending away from coal,” the heiress of the Norman’s share of Harvey Norman, says. “We have a moral responsibility to make sure these coal miners can transition” because one day the market will collapse, leaving them in a “dreadful situation”.
BHP’s Mount Arthur coal mine near Muswellbrook in the Upper Hunter.Credit: Janie Barrett
For its part, the Minerals Council declines to provide forecasts for coal. The industry lobby group also tends to downplay the 2023 scheduled closure of AGL’s Liddell power plant, one of the Upper Hunter’s two coal-fired power stations. Neighbouring Bayswater, owned by the same company, is slated to shut by 2035.
Instead, it touts the ongoing success of the coal export industry with shipments hovering near record levels of about 160 million tonnes annually since 2014.
It says the Upper Hunter seat has a total mining workforce of 7320, there are 1079 local businesses supplying the industry and direct spending of some $1.8 billion in the local economy.
Tony O’Driscoll of Newgate Stud Farm and Hunter Thoroughbred Association president Cameron Collins with stallion North Pacific.Credit: Janie Barrett
Coal, though, is not without deep-pocketed objectors, such as the valley’s thoroughbred breeding industry. It says it contributes some $2.6 billion to the NSW economy, with 470 breeders and 5745 employees and what it calls “participants”.
“More coal mining could spell the end of agriculture in the Upper Hunter,” Cameron Collins, president of the Hunter Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association, says as he leaves a paddock at the Newgate Stud Farm near Scone containing champion racer and now highly sought-after sire, Capitalist. “Both of the big parties have said they will protect us, but they haven’t.”
Collins says the government’s declaration of the region as one of the world’s three major horse breeding areas hasn’t stopped them approving one giant coal mine after another.
“They are getting closer to us and the mines are getting bigger and bigger,” he says. “It’s quite frightening.”
Moreover, the uncertainty of further mines means owners are already beginning to shift investments elsewhere, such as to Victoria and New Zealand, curbing alternative job openings to mining.
Some clarity at least may come on April 24 for the proposed mine closest to the Newgate stud, Dartbrook, near the town of Aberdeen.
BHP’s Mt Arthur coal mine near Mussellbrook.Credit: Janie Barrett
The Land and Environment Court is scheduled to hear arguments involving whether Australian Pacific Coal (APC), owner of the underground coal mine, can extend its permit to dig 6 million tonnes of coal a year until 2027.
Dartbrook has been dormant since 2006 after several deaths, with ownership since passing from former billionaire Nathan Tinkler to APC who are reportedly in “dire financial straits”.
The fate of another planned coal mine in the Upper Hunter may be known within weeks with the Independent Planning Commission scheduled to give its verdict on the Mangoola mine extension. Mining giant Glencore wants to extend the life of the mine to 2030 and extract 52 million more tonnes of coal.
For Margot and Michael White, the Mangoola extension would bring the mine, which is five kilometres from their Wybong property, to half that distance, and likely worsen the dust that regularly coats the rooms in their house and contaminates their water tanks.
“We lie here,” Margot says as she vacuums grit from a bedside lamp. “It’s scary when you see what we breathe.”
Margot White vacuums coal dust from a bedside lamp that she says has collected there for the past month. Credit: Janie Barrett
The Whites are familiar with mining. Michael worked for BHP for almost 25 years before retiring in 2014 after serving as head of the huge Mt Arthur coal mine that looms over Muswellbrook.
Margot also speaks of the “Gates of Hell” they have to drive through to get to Muswellbrook, with mines on both sides of road.
“It’s given me a great life,” Michael says, adding that the scale of mining has grown enormously over the last 20 years. “We didn’t have the urgency of climate change,” he says. “That’s the thing that terrifies me.”
Some of those sentiments resonate with a current coal miner at one of the area’s big mines. Underscoring the sensitivity of the issues, the miner asked that his identity and workplace not be revealed.
A coal miner, who requested anonymity, says it will be difficult to replace the lucrative mining jobs in the region. Even so, the industry is not so popular within his own family.Credit: Janie Barrett
He says coal mining had allowed to stay in the region after drought and other challenges made his farm work not viable.
“If we didn’t have mining, we wouldn’t have survived on the farm,” he told the Herald. “Farming is such a difficult thing.”
An annual salary of about $150,000 would be difficult to match for someone “with no skills other than a farmer”. Similar council jobs may pay just a third of his wages because of the lack of weekend penalty rates and other loading.
A 20 year-old, meanwhile, can rake in $100,000 “a lot of money for a young person”, he says.
The miner, though, is conscious that his work has its detractors, with two of their children taking “a view of the mining industry that is totally different” because of its contribution to climate change.
“We have to remind them that what’s putting them through uni ... it’s coming from what he’s doing,” his wife says.
“Discussions at the table get quite heated,” she says. “We try and avoid [the subject], which is sad.”