Coal mining devastates villages and cultural heritage in Australia’s Hunter Valley

In Australia’s Hunter Valley the coal mining industry is devastating local villages and precious Aboriginal heritage, and three people who have been campaigning against mine expansion in the area face possible seven-year jail sentences under New South Wales’ anti-protest legislation.

The valley is a stunningly beautiful area that is one of Australia’s main wine-producing regions, with a viticultural history dating back to the early 1800s, but the local town of Mudgee now has three coal mines on its doorstep – Wilpinjong, Moolarben, and Ulan – and one more mine is planned at nearby Bylong.

The local landscape is now dominated by mine pits and mining infrastructure. The ecosystem has been irreparably damaged, local wildlife have lost vital habitat, and the owners of Wilpinjong have run roughshod over local people’s lives and livelihoods.

The village and district of Wollar, where there used to be a thriving community of several hundred people, have been nearly emptied of their residents, and the few that remain are suffering serious health problems because of noise and dust, mostly from the Wilpinjong mine, which has been operating for about ten years.

Wilpinjong is owned and operated by Wilpinjong Coal Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Peabody Energy Australia Ltd. The Peabody parent company, which is based in the United States, is the world’s biggest private sector coal producer.

Wilpinjong Coal now owns most of Wollar village. Only three properties remain in private ownership. The four residents, who include two brothers in one property, are holding out and refusing to sell.

The three people who now face jail sentences and/or a 5,000 AUD (about 4,000 $US) fine, are the convener of the Central West Environment Council Bev Smiles, Bruce Hughes, and Stephanie Luke. They have all entered a plea of not guilty.

Smiles and Hughes, who are both in their sixties, live on properties on the edge of the land owned by Peabody outside Wollar village. Luke, aged 52, lives in Bathurst, but has been so shocked by the effects of the Wilpinjong mine that she joined the protest. The three refused to move on when asked to do so by police.

Bruce Hughes

Smiles, Hughes, and Luke were in a group of about thirty demonstrators who picketed the entrance to the Wilpinjong mine and stopped incoming traffic during the shift change on April 12 this year. They were protesting against the expansion of Wilpinjong, which would bring the mining operation to just 1.5 kilometres from Wollar.

“The police directed us to move off the road and the majority of people did, but three of us had decided that we were prepared to get arrested because this was all that was left for us to do to raise the profile of what government decisions have done to our community,” Smiles said.

Bev Smiles being arrested. Photo courtesy of the Newcastle Herald.

The protesters thought they would most likely be charged with obstruction under the Roads Act, but they have also been charged under new legislation in the Crimes Act.

The Act already included a section about interfering with mines, but this was originally about workers’ safety rather than protest. It has now been amended and ramped up to cover protests against coal mining and gas exploitation.

It refers not only to land owned by a mining company, but anything associated with the company’s mine, and carries a maximum penalty of seven years’ imprisonment and a 5,000 AUD fine.

“The fact that they’ve decided to charge us under the Crimes Act, is, in a way, helping us to get the story out even further because it’s just so dramatic what they’ve done to us. So many people are now even more outraged,” Smiles said.

“This is again demonstrating how this government has been totally captured by the mining industry.

“It’s hard to believe how short-sighted they are, but they’re captured by the industry myth – that it creates jobs and wealth long term.”

Photo courtesy of Green Left.

Greens MP David Shoebridge, says people’s rights to protest peacefully have been stripped from them and the case of the Wollar Three will put the new legislation to the test.

“What this case will show,” Shoebridge said, “is the deep illegitimacy of laws that seek to criminalise protests. This is three citizens of New South Wales who are standing up and protecting their homes and now they potentially face seven years in jail for it. That’s an illegitimate law that needs to be scrubbed off our statute books.”

Shoebridge said there would be an overwhelming community backlash if the Wollar Three were sent to jail for protesting.

“If ever these laws end up taking someone’s liberty because they were doing nothing more than expressing their right to oppose a poor law or to oppose a community-destroying coalmine, that will be a very sad day for New South Wales, and it will be one of the last days for a government that would see someone in jail for that reason.”

Bev Smiles outside an abandoned propety in Wollar.

The NSW government has removed the right of the community to appeal the merit of Department of Planning decisions about coal mines in the Land and Environment Court, and this is what drove the protest in April.

“There’s been an ongoing local and state-wide campaign to have our merit appeal rights reinstated,” Smiles said.

“If the planning minister sends a project to the Planning Assessment Commission with a directive for them to run a public hearing on a project, the public hearing is what extinguishes your legal right for a merit appeal in the Land and Environment Court.”

Community campaigners decided to boycott the public hearing about Wilpinjong so as to raise awareness about the loss of appeal rights.

“We protested outside and had a concurrent protest in Sydney,” Smiles said. “A lot of people were shocked that our appeal rights had been removed.”

One of those people is Stephanie Luke, who says the new law is being used like a sledgehammer to silence people.

“The mantra that’s used all the time is ‘jobs and growth’, no matter how short-term and how lunatic the vision, and I just don’t think that approach is working for the local landscape.”

Coal mining, Luke says, is outdated and she is stunned that Australian governments are still relying on “old-fashioned, dangerous technology that is about to die out”.

Department of Planning approval for the Wilpinjong extension was given two weeks after public submissions closed and there were public holidays over that period.

“They had already made up their minds,” Smiles said. “Their report was pretty basic, and they didn’t change a thing in the conditions.

“There was absolutely no justice for us anywhere in this entire process.”

In a statement issued in response to the NSW Planning Assessment Commission’s approval for the mine extension, Peabody said that the project would secure the ongoing employment of the current workforce of four hundred, create up to another 75 operational jobs, and secure the supply of high quality coal to domestic and export customers.

“The mine is a significant contributor to the local economy and generated approximately AUD $800 million in direct and indirect economic benefits in 2016,” the company said.

Smiles, Hughes, and Luke appeared in court on February 9, 2018, in Mudgee. Judgement has been scheduled for June 5.

This is an extract from an article on Changing Times. The full story can be found at https://tinyurl.com/ydclutnn