I can't see the issues around the coal industry in black and white terms, even though I'd vote for any ethical replacement plan in a heartbeat.
As much as people build places, places substantially build our identities, and people literally lived and died by coal mines where I grew up. I went to primary school at Nulkaba which means place of coal. My father always identified himself as a coal miner even though his job literally broke his back. If I'd been a boy, I might have ended up down a mine and I would have made a lot more money than I have, but I'm not sure I'd be less conflicted.
I've been down one longwall coal mine that extended under Lake Maquarie, near Newcastle. My group put on oversized, borrowed protective gear and travelled down to the shaft in a buggy. Inside it was cool and damp with salt water drips coming through the roof.
We were in near darkness until we got to the shaft where the machine was waiting with its rotating, snaggle-tooth head poised to take another gouge. I'd anticipated fear of being enclosed down there, like a scene from Birdsong, but it was actually fairly spacious.
The job was to walk along catwalks, overseeing mechanisation. The miner held a remote control device in his (potentially her) hands, rather than a pick or shovel. The crew, far fewer than in old bord and pillar style mines. Clinical and lacking the sad romance of a D. H. Lawrence novel.
For a few weeks in 2006, Australians and people around the world were captivated by the working conditions and hardships of miners when Todd Russell and Brant Webb were trapped underground at Beaconsfield. Yet, inevitably, the interest in these human faces of mining faded, less quickly than the name of their colleague who died. He was Larry Knight.
Unfortunately, restating coal's incontrovertible damage to places and people isn't redundant. In 2003, the Australian Bureau of Statistics Yearbook was already saying mining damages to the environment, including serious erosion and contamination, noting that costs of rehabilitation had risen then by 62 per cent since 1996-97.
"There is a deep tension between policy paralysis, increasing prices, town survival, and the mountain of evidence linking mining to so many negative impacts on people and places over the last 150 years."
And while mining has been part of the backbone of Australia's economy, it's come at a horrendous human price. Between 1 July 2013 and 30 June 2014, there were 15 known fatalities in Australian mining, exploration, smelting and refining (Australian Mine Accident Database).
But the toll is even more pervasive than these grim fatality statistics, with evidence that shift work and environmental hazards have many adverse health effects on mining families (Australian Mine Safety Journal, 24 July 2017). Issues such as domestic violence and suicides have been linked to fly-in-fly-out jobs in the newer, remote mines. It's not difficult to understand how this lifestyle, with its boredom and isolation, leads to mental health issues and family tension.
The last 70 of 300 employees of West Wallsend colliery were terminated in July 2016, after environmental controversies ironically convinced its owners, Glencore, to wind down operations after more than 80 million tonnes were extracted over its life. This was one of the latest closures in the extinction of this industry, where coal mines have fallen like dominoes in long established areas.
This year has had the closure of Hazelwood power station and its associated mine, and then Liddell became the fire in the political hole. Coal-fired power stations, at the end of their working lives, are trouble for the government. However, in light of massive outages in alternative-energy-committed South Australia and the lack of long term plans or coordination between governments, the desire to go greener and cleaner has come up against understandable angst.
Come January, with potential for summer blackouts, some may be willing to sacrifice sustainability goals for cool homes, but many should be angry at governments who seem to be doing nothing. There is a deep tension between policy paralysis, increasing prices, town survival, and the mountain of evidence linking mining to so many negative impacts on people and places over the last 150 years. Surely it's time for governments to dig a little deeper to find a humane transition.
The Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining has been estimating the socio-economic impacts of mine closure and concluded that it will mean that some towns are no longer viable (Research Paper No. 8, 2007). That is a soft way of saying towns become extinct. The smaller and more 'one industry' the town, the more likely it won't survive, but some carry on when the minerals run out. The Hunter Valley had vineyards. These days, hospitality may be the new black, but I think the issue of coal is far from being black and white.
Jennifer Pont is a part-time carer, part-time student and part-time education worker from Ballarat, Vic.