Rising Tide Australia

The Iemma Government's decision to approve the massive Anvil Hill coal mine shows that they have no intention of fighting climate change, and are incapable of saying 'no' to the coal lobby; said the Newcastle activist who took the mine proposal to court and won, Peter Gray.

“The Iemma Government has conducted 10 months of consultation with the community about the Anvil Hill coal mine proposal, and then ignored it all. They have received thousands of public submissions demanding that the Anvil Hill mine be rejected due to the major amounts of greenhouse pollution it would create – the equivalent of the entire NSW transport sector. They were told by the horse breeding and wine making industries that the coal mine should not go ahead, because it would threaten other industries in the Hunter. They have ignored all these concerns, because they are too gutless to say 'no' to the coal lobby.”

“This mine would have massive impacts on threatened species in the Hunter Valley, destroying one of the largest tracts of bushland remaining in the region. It would destroy a large area of water catchment for the already stressed Hunter River. The 10 million tonnes of coal from Anvil Hill will wreak irreparable damage on the global climate, tipping the planet further towards dangerous, runaway climate change. In the face of such massive impacts, the Iemma government still couldn't find the guts to say no to the coal lobby.”

“It just goes to show what a sick joke the Planning laws of NSW are, when a mine like Anvil Hill can be approved and meaningful community consultation be dammed. Threatened species, water catchments and alternative industries in the Hunter be dammed. To hell with climate change, says the Iemma government, there's coal to be mined.

“It is time the Iemma Government admitted that they have no intention of fighting the causes of climate change”