IN March, 2007 the then Australian Labor leader of the opposition Kevin Rudd said climate change loomed as "the great moral, economic, social and environmental challenge of our age, and our planet is calling us to action".
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Three months later his Labor colleague, Frank Sartor, showed how things are done in NSW by approving the controversial Anvil Hill coal mine 20 kilometres west of Muswellbrook. He did so as Australia prepared itself for the Bali global climate change conference in December, 2007 to work on a new set of emissions targets to replace the Kyoto agreement.
Mr Sartor batted climate change questions away with arguments that are strikingly familiar 12 years later.
Anvil Hill - which changed to Mangoola in 2010 when Centennial Coal sold it to Xstrata for $400 million - was "a very large reserve of coal that would generate revenues of some $9.6 billion", Mr Sartor said.
It would create jobs, he said.
While the climate change debate was "absolutely legitimate" and the NSW Government recognised the reality of climate change, the rejection of Anvil Hill would have no impact on the burning of fossil fuels internationally, Mr Sartor said.
"To inflict a penalty on the economy of New South Wales, a penalty of many billions of dollars when there is going to be no compensating net environmental benefit because the same amount of coal will continue to be burnt from other sources, is being irrational," he said.
Twelve years later, after Kevin Rudd backed away from climate change as "the great moral challenge of our generation", and as the Morrison Federal Government struggles to respond to rising community anger about lack of action on climate change, the Anvil Hill/Mangoola coal mine is once again in the picture.
Mangoola's owner Glencore wants to expand north to recover an additional 52 million tonnes of coal from its Wybong mine site, after accelerating production for five years and bringing forward the likelihood of mine closure to 2025 because of exhausted coal reserves. For Glencore the equation is expand Mangoola or address the huge costs of closure four years earlier than expected, as well as telling more than 400 workers their jobs are at an end.
The 2007 Anvil Hill climate change protests are a memory, but Mangoola expansion plans are stirring passions.
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