OPINION: THE NSW Premier has failed to protect communities from the negative impacts of mining developments, says DREW HUTTON.
Barry O’Farrell was elected in 2011 saying he would resign if he failed to live up to his promises. He signed a “contract” with the NSW people and promised to “give people a real say on issues affecting their local community”.
Last week (Wednesday August 14), farmers and residents from communities impacted by coal and gas around NSW, like Bulga, Gloucester and the Bylong Valley, gathered in numbers at the NSW Supreme Court to tear up that contract.
When it comes to protecting NSW communities from the negative impacts of coal and coal seam gas developments, Mr O’Farrell and his government have clearly failed.
The catalyst for the action is an appeal by mining giant Rio Tinto and the NSW government, seeking to overturn a Land and Environment Court decision to protect the Bulga community in the Upper Hunter Valley from the devastating impacts of a massive extension to the Warkworth open cut coal mine. This mine would open up an 11 kilometre front just a couple of kilometres from the historic village.
The appeal is being mounted by Rio and the government despite the Land and Environment Court finding that, ''the project's impacts would exacerbate the loss of sense of place, and materially and adversely change the sense of community, of the residents of Bulga and the surrounding countryside.''
High levels of noise and dust would be generated, the judgment found, and the mine would have had ''significant and unacceptable'' effects on plants and animals.
The proposed mine expansion would remove a ridge separating the town from the existing mine, and bulldoze the last stand of highly endangered Warkworth Sands Woodland.
A mine extension approval was granted in the 2000s on the basis of a deed of agreement between the company and the then Government that the ridge would never be breached. The Bulga community has now been betrayed by government in league with 'Big Coal'.
The story is the same right across NSW. Communities have been battling for the most basic protections of their air, water and right to exist from international mining giants.
Even when the community wins, the government is on hand to take up the cause of the miners.
The story in the Bylong Valley in the Central West fits the mould too. Partly the community’s fight has been against the corruptly issued coal exploration licence over the valley. But even with the findings of the Independent Commission Against Corruption in, we have seen little reaction by the government to correct this wrong on the Bylong community.
While the case was running, many landholders in Bylong were bought out. Others had to fight demands by mining companies for exploration access through legal arbitration. The law in NSW forces landholders that want to ensure their land and water will not be compromised by exploration into protracted and expensive legal processes.
Many promises have been made by the Coalition in NSW both during the 2011 election campaign and now in government.
They promised to fix the land access arrangements, yet that process is still weighted towards the miners.
In government, Mr O’Farrell assured the NSW people that our farmland would be protected. Strategic Agricultural Land was identified, and the Premier promised to ensure agricultural impacts are considered in planning approvals for mining.
But after all the announcements and flowcharts, the release last month of plans to change the mining planning policy would effectively override all of that. Under that plan, the economic value of the coal resource would trump all else when a mining proposal comes before the Minister.
Decisions like the overturning of the Bulga mine approval could not happen under that proposed policy. Regardless of a mine’s impact on the environment, on air quality, noise and local amenity the mine could be justified on economic grounds alone.
Highly productive farmland could be legally sacrificed for coal or gas. The Liverpool Plains, one of Australia’s most productive food bowls, could be mined. Our water supplies would come second to coal and gas.
In Opposition, Mr O’Farrell and his Resources and Energy Minister Chris Hartcher famously posed in red ‘Water not Coal’ T-shirts to protest the Wallarah 2 coal proposal near Wyong. In government they have accepted a new proposal for the mine from the giant South Korean government owned miner KORES.
In opposition Mr O’Farrell promised to “restore accountability” and to “return planning powers to the community”. In government the community still has no say. Take for example the people of Gloucester in the Upper Hunter, who are overwhelmingly against a new coal mine proposed for just 1.8km from their town and hundreds of coal seam gas wells throughout their valley.
Last Wednesday the community came together at the Supreme Court, holding Barry O’Farrell and Chris Hartcher accountable for their government’s commitment to put community, land and water before coal and gas.
If the government hoped they could silence the people by changing the planning laws and teaming up with Big Coal and Gas, we’re sending a message that they are sorely mistaken.
