POWER AND THE PASSION: Transition to renewable energy must consider generations of Newcastle families rely on Hunter Valley coal industry

Then, as now, the coal mining industry was booming in the Hunter.

Miners and hundreds of pit ponies worked in deep tunnels for decades, mining the South Maitland coalfield, which once boasted 28 pits and 11,000 workers.

Power & the Passion: A Newcastle Herald special reporting series

Miners using shovels worked in pairs at the coal face, filling 20 one-tonne skips a day. The wheelers collected the skips of coal from the miners and took them to the endless rope road.

There the clippers, a job Mr Peters moved into, would clip the full skips onto the moving rope that pulled the skips to the surface.

"I lived in Cessnock at the time and 90 per cent of people worked in the mines, that's all there was," Mr Peters said.

"We never earned a great deal of money, we might have got about 20 pounds a week, but it was enough. I was bloody hard work, especially for the coal miners."

Mr Peters' father and four brothers worked in the mines, his eldest son recently retired as a mine electrician and three of his grandsons still work in the Upper Hunter.

"Just like in my day, whole towns still depend on the mines," he said. "I can't imagine the Hunter without mining, it's part of who we are."

The 90-year-old has seen more of the industry's highs and lows than most.

Starting out as a 19 year old, he remembers the pit horses as essential, being a cheap, efficient way to haul huge coal carts and equipment around underground.

The horses were so reliable and important that mine management often prized the pit ponies more than their men.

Some horses were known to walk themselves out of the mine at the end of a week's work up to the pit paddock for the weekend before returning, by themselves, to the underground stables on Sunday afternoon to be ready for the Monday shift.

But the loyal equines were finally replaced by tractors.

Mr Peters saw firsthand the massive technological changes that redefined the Hunter coal industry. The father-of-four eventually took a job at Chain Valley Colliery and worked there until he retired.

"There used to be strikes to get better conditions," he said. "All of the conditions were hard fought for, that's why miners are on such good money today."

Workers and horses were invaluable until mechanisation began to replace them and many miners lost their jobs.

"They put the machines in and there were a lot of men looking for work," Mr Peters said. "Aberdare Extended went from 300 men to only 100. A lot had to shift into different industries, like BHP or Commsteel, there just wasn't work for everyone anymore in mining. It happened pretty fast."

After witnessing the booming mines crushed by outdated technology and the rising costs of a labour intensive industry, Mr Peters saw the industry rise again for Newcastle to become the world's largest coal export port.

Then, like now, Hunter coal workers face an uncertain future. But this time the industry is facing a different kind of threat, as the momentum for leaving coal in the ground accelerates globally.

As countries around the world take action to implement the Paris Agreement climate change goals, there are fears that without urgent reforms, in the form of a coordinated transition plan, a tsunami will spread through the largely coal-dependent Hunter Valley.

Mr Peters said while the industry had faltered at times, he couldn't imagine the region without coal. He said as long as there was demand for export coal, Hunter mines would "just keep going".

"When I was young growing up in Cessnock there were coal mines everywhere," he said.

"Now they have moved further up the valley and the technology just keeps improving. I think they will keep go ahead for as long as people want coal. It's crucial to the community and crucial to towns for workers and businesses, it's always been the same."

Life will be different for Meg Southcombe and her brother.

Both of Ms Southcombe's parents, and both of her grandfathers, worked in the Hunter Valley's coal mines and power stations.

"The coal mines are our livelihood but we also do in my family understand it's not good for the environment," the 18-year-old said.

"We have fully had conversations at the dinner table, that it's really bad for the environment, and we are fully aware of that. But if we are going to move to other forms of energy, like wind farms and stuff, we just need transition."

Ms Southcombe is acutely aware of the high rates of dependency that so many people in her hometown of Muswellbrook have on the mines for employment, and the fact it won't last forever.

Like so many other young people living in coal communities, she has real concerns about the impact of coal on the environment, as well as where the jobs of the future will be, and whether or not a real and meaningful transition plan will be put in place in time to prevent disaster.

Her parents, like so many others, have worked in mining since leaving school. About 30 of her classmates have gone down the same road.

"Literally every second person in Muswellbrook, their mum or dad had something to do with mines - or if not an aunty or an uncle, or the people you sat next to class in every day - 30 of them are out in the mines," she said. That "hole in the ground", puts food on the table.

"It's literally the transition that I'm worried about. It will impact the community and we need to make sure we're ready, because the mines provide so much for everyone.

"It's put me through a Catholic education and is now paying for me to live on campus on college. I am here on a Glencore scholarship, which helps buy text books, and came in handy when my computer died.

"The Muswellbrook and Upper Hunter Show is all sponsored by Bengalla. They put me through netball since I was about nine, and then by playing through the local netball comp, proudly supported by one of the mines, I then went and played for Newcastle for Hunter Academy for two years. I was captain of the squad and now I'm a coach for the academy.

"So they provide opportunities for kids and adults so that's how they put back into the community so it's awesome to see that."

Transition has to start now.

"The government needs to remember it's not a debate, it's people's lives," she said.

"Why are they sitting there debating when there is this whole big question mark being asked, when will we transition - we all know it's going to happen, coal is going to run out, so it's going to have to happen or the government will have too many people out of jobs which won't be good for the economy.

"So, it's just remembering that it's people, real people, who do it for a livelihood, and planning needs to happen now, so people have reassurance about what's going to happen, because people are starting in this industry now at my age - until they are 60 and the retirement age keeps getting pushed back, so potentially even longer, so it might not be there by the time they are 30 years into the workforce, so what are they going to do, and that is the big question."

The issue of mental health must be factored in, she said.

Last year Ms Southcombe wrote an essay about her lived experience of being part of a coal mining family when their jobs are becoming increasingly precarious.

The threat of job loss is what sent her father on a spiral of depression, she said, and that had an impact on the whole family. Her essay caught the attention of NSW Governor Margaret Beazley, who now consults Meg's work for regional public policy discussions around mental health.

"It is a process ... forward planning has to start today to make sure there are going to be new industries for people who may fall out of mining." University student Myles Egan, aged 22, of Singleton, agrees that the

psychological, and broader societal impacts of transition must be factored into the planning process, in part to ensure community buy-in, essential to its success.

"Mining is an identity for lots of people in this part of the world .. and unless people who are part of this transition recognise that and the policy makers recognise that it will be really hard I believe to get the community buy in necessary in order to make the transition successful," he said.

Mr Egan has just started his honours in development studies at the University of Newcastle and is doing a thesis on what is driving pockets of resistance to change and transition in Singleton - because, he said, it does exist.

"In the last federal election we had a One Nation candidate receive upwards of 20 per cent of the vote on a platform of pro-mining, we don't need to worry about transition away from coal, so there is still an element of people who are not on board, who are fearful of change, and it's getting to the bottom of what's driving that," he said.

"So what I am trying to do is separate between material dimensions of loss. We are constantly talking about incomes, jobs, mortgages and homes all of that sort of thing, and separating that out from what some researchers refer to as hidden dimensions of loss which is what happens when a particular change, be it industrial or environmental, impacts who you are and how you define yourself.

"So if you are a miner and your family has been in mining for generations, when the industry winds down or completely disappears you're not only losing the job and an income, you're also losing part of who you are and how you define yourself.

"That has not been well enough addressed by policy or even in our discussion around change and transition."

As with Ms Southcombe, there is a sense of urgency required to ensure there is a just, and planned-for transition, Mr Egan said. How soon does he think real change is coming?

"The benchmark that I come back to is NSW Treasury modelling in the last few years that says by 2060 there'll be 80 per cent fewer mining jobs in NSW than there are today. That is a middle of the road prediction.

"It doesn't sound that scary yet, people would picture themselves as being retired by then, but there is not going to be a sudden drop in the years leading up to 2060, it's going to be a steady gradual decline with people finding themselves dropping out of employment or finding their employment more precarious over those decades.

"So it's still something we have to be constantly on top of, it's not something we can keep kicking the can down the road and hope everything will be ok in the future.

"They are worried for the future of where they live but many of them are responding in very positive ways like knowing they will have to go and get themselves trained in something that is going to be useful for the future of the workforce

"They are smart they are thinking ahead. They are saying the world in which I grew up and my parents and my parents' parents grew up in is changing and I can't expect the same life, and the they are happy to embrace this because they are frightened about the consequences of climate change and they think adults like us are just absolutely not doing enough to protect the climate and their futures. They have a strong meta-narrative around their futures and that something's got to be done.

"And they want to be part of that - they don't want it to be done to them. We've got to get out of their way and enable them to respond to what they're saying and we have to appreciate the big structural pieces that make a difference and have an impact on their future."

Both of their views and experiences and expectations line up with the results of a population survey being conducted by Hunter Research Foundation academic director Professor Roberta Ryan, which looks at how people living in coal communities see themselves.

"It talks about their perspective on their future," she said.

"It was quite interesting how their views reflected the wider data we had about changing attitudes towards climate and the expectation that this is inevitable and coal can't continue because of its impacts on the climate but these kids want to stay in these coal towns so how do you create a new future so that there are well-paid employment opportunities and that's a really key question.

"They're worried about their communities, and whether they will be able to get well paid secure jobs."

Peter Andrews worked in Hunter mines for 22 years, raising his family in Singleton.

The 58-year-old didn't encourage his sons to follow in his footsteps.

"I said to my youngest, if he is going to go and be a truckie in the pits, do it for 12 months or so, grab your money and get out of there - do whatever you want with the money - buy a small truck and do a courier service, just don't get caught up in the bullshit of the mining," Mr Andrews said.

One of the biggest issue he sees with the industry has been the increasing casualisation of the workforce, which offers little security.

"The companies have eroded workers' conditions - and casualised the workforce leaving workers in a more vulnerable position," he said.

"When you're a casual you can't go and get a loan to buy a house and settle down, it's only these guys who are permanent."

Mr Andrews knows coal won't last forever, but he can still see a future for current workers.

"Seriously, I think the coal industry is going to be around for a little bit longer than they say - but it's going to come to a time, not in my life time, when it will be all over," he said.

IN THE NEWS:

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: