This week saw the hearings for the Hunter Valley continuation project. The commission heard from a number of voices many of which have ever been to a mine or visited the Hunter. For us and the Muswellbrook community this is our home and our livelihood. I am a former miner and now the Mayor of Muswellbrook Shire Council, mine closures and decline are a reality for us, we live it every day and so do the other 50,000 people that are reliant on mining in the Hunter Region.
Right now, this region is standing at the most consequential economic crossroad in its history — and it is standing there twice.
The Hunter Valley Operations Extension Project is before the commission. At the very same time, the Mount Pleasant Optimisation Project is before the High Court of Australia. These are not two separate stories. They are the same story, told twice — because Muswellbrook and Singleton do not experience these projects as isolated approvals. We experience them as one regional economy, one labour market, one housing market, and one set of family incomes.
If either project does not proceed, the impact on our communities will be serious. If both do not proceed, in the same window of time, this region will
face an economic and social shock without precedent — felt in mining jobs, in the contractors and small businesses that service this industry, in housing, in retail, and in the family budgets of thousands of households across Muswellbrook and Singleton.
The Commission does not carry that risk alone. But the Commission’s decision materially shapes whether that risk becomes reality.
The NSW Government’s own Coal Industry 2026–50 Policy recognises what this community already knows: coal remains part of this state’s economy for years yet, and that time needs to be managed deliberately — not ended abruptly by default, project by project, through the assessment system.
Approving the HVO Extension Project, with the Department’s recommended conditions, is consistent with that state policy pathway. It buys this region something it cannot buy any other way: time.
Time to build what comes next, in a way that is planned, not panicked.
Because let me be clear — Muswellbrook Shire Council is not asking the Commission to keep this region dependent on coal forever. We are asking for the runway to reposition it.
This Council is already doing the work. Alongside the NSW Government, the Net Zero Economy Authority and BHP, we are delivering the Mount Arthur Coal Post-Mining Land Use Pilot — turning former mining land into the master-planned industrial land this region needs for its next economy. That pilot depends on a functioning regional economy to fund it, resource it, and give it time to succeed. HVO’s continued operation is part of what keeps that runway open.
This is what “Powering the Future Economy” means in practice. Not coal instead of transition. Coal helping to funding the transition.
Council has engaged closely with the Department on this assessment. We support the recommended conditions requiring a Post-Mining Land Use Strategy, a Closure Social Impact Management Plan, and a Construction Workforce Accommodation Strategy. These conditions mean this approval is not open-ended — it is a responsibly managed, time-limited bridge, with closure and community-transition planning built in from day one, not bolted on at the end.
Council has also been direct with the Department and the Proponent about where we believe the current package falls short — particularly on the scale of direct financial contribution to Council relative to comparable operations, and on productive interim use of mine buffer land during the life of the mine, not just after closure. These remain live issues for us, and we will keep pursuing them. But they are reasons to strengthen this approval — not reasons to withhold it.
I haven’t seen a project bring people together like this application. The people of the Hunter, particularly the Upper Hunter realise the consequences of this application if it is not approved. They will be economically unrecoverable.
This region has powered New South Wales for generations. We are not asking you to freeze that role in place. We are asking you to approve this
project, with strengthened conditions, so this community has the time, the revenue and the stability to power what comes next — for Muswellbrook, for Singleton, and for Upper Hunter.
