In allowing coal expansion in the Hunter, Chris Minns is pouring fuel on the climate fire. His decision will come back to hurt us all
"As someone who lost their home in the black summer bushfires, I was buoyed by the high court finding in favour of a small community group in the Hunter Valley earlier this month.
Led by two retired science teachers, Wendy Wales and Tony Lonergan, the Denman Aberdeen Muswellbrook Scone Healthy Environment Group took on a massive coal corporation and won. As a fellow schoolteacher, I felt a particular sense of pride seeing these ordinary Australians act on their care for their community and future generations.
In their four-year fight against MACH Energy’s Mount Pleasant coalmine in Muswellbrook, they argued it is no longer OK for big mining corporations to dig up coal and bank piles of cash while pretending the climate pollution from burning that coal is someone else’s problem.
The high court agreed that conditions aimed at reducing the climate pollution from burning Australian coal overseas had not been properly considered when the rosily named “Mount Pleasant Optimisation Project” received New South Wales approval.
Mining interests quickly responded to the high court’s decision, saying it was a threat to investment. Well, of course it is. But only to the wrong kind of investment – the kind that brings us all more frequent, worse and very costly climate-driven disasters.
Now, less than two weeks later, the NSW premier, Chris Minns, has announced plans to introduce special legislation that will allow the very same coal company to increase production at Mount Pleasant by nearly a third, bypassing the state’s usual planning approval process and scrutiny by the courts.
Minns says this is necessary to 'protect 400 jobs'. But the mine already has approval to operate until 2032. What message does it send when ordinary Australians fight for years to uphold the law, win in the highest court in the land and then watch our government step in to change the rules?"
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2026/oct/23/chris-minns-coal-expansion-laws-will-hurt-us-all-climate-mount-pleasant
#LaborFail #ClimateChange #EnvironmentalTerrorism #GlobalWarming #News #Environment #HumanRights #AnimalRights #PlanetaryRights #FireMinns #Corruption #Complicity #Australia