Queensland coal industry has ‘decades’ of life, says Premier Steven Miles

Queensland Premier Steven Miles insists the state’s steelmaking coal industry will continue for decades, as conservationists lodge a formal court challenge to Australia’s largest proposed new coal mine.

Queensland Premier Steven Miles in Mackay. Picture: Michaela Harlow

Queensland Premier Steven Miles insists the state’s steelmaking coal industry will continue for decades, as conservationists lodge a formal court challenge to Australia’s largest proposed new coalmine.

The Australian Conservation Foundation and Mackay Conservation Group object to Whitehaven Coal’s Winchester South project – which would extract 17 million tonnes a year of steelmaking metallurgical coal and energy-producing thermal coal from the Bowen Basin in central Queensland – on climate change and human rights grounds.

At a town hall meeting in Mackay on Wednesday night, on the eve of the conservationists’ legal move in the Queensland Land Court, Mr Miles told concerned locals the coal industry would have an “ongoing role in our state”, particularly metallurgical coal, while thermal coal would be phased out.

“We know that there will be ongoing global demand for that coking coal, and so we continue to support and encourage investment into those industries,” Mr Miles said.

“We continue to receive applications for new mines, and they get considered through the appropriate process. We do know that … we have a plan to reduce over time our reliance on thermal coal for power generation.”

Whitehaven Coal's Winchester South coal mine is being challenged in Queensland’s Land Court.

In late 2022, the Queensland government announced it would all but phase out coal-fired power by 2035, to hit its ambitious renewables target of 80 per cent by that year.

Resources Minister Scott Stewart told the Mackay meeting “steelmaking coal is going to be needed for decades and decades and decades, and we’ve got the best in the world”.

“Your kids will have jobs in the coal industry for decades to come,” Mr Stewart said.

The conservationists will ask the Land Court to recommend Mr Stewart and the state’s environment department reject Whitehaven’s applications for an environmental authority and mining leases.

Environmental Defenders Office southern and central Queensland managing lawyer Revel Pointon said her clients hoped that if the case were successful, the precedent would stop governments approving new fossil fuel projects.

A Whitehaven spokesman said the company had welcomed the government’s decision to approve the Winchester South draft environmental authority in February after “extensive assessment and consultation”.

He said the project was expected to deliver “significant benefits for the people of Queensland” and overseas trading partners who relied on Australia’s “high-quality” metallurgical coal.

“We developed a final design that seeks to avoid, minimise or offset environmental and other impacts,” he said.

“Whitehaven is also pleased to be one of the first proponents to submit a Greenhouse Gas Management and Abatement plan, which outlines proposed measures to minimise and avoid Scope 1 and 2 emissions.”

The location of Whitehaven Coal’s proposed Winchester South open cut coal mine in the Bowen Basin.

Environment Minister Leanne Linard said it was the conservation organisations’ right to challenge the department’s decision, and the state co-ordinator-general had set 206 conditions and 18 recommendations to manage the project’s “environmental, social and economic impacts”.

“Our government’s position on resources projects is that they must stack up economically, environmentally and socially,” Ms Linard said.