Government defends decision to approve coal mine ‘extensions’

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The environment minister is under fire for saying her government has approved no new coal mines this year, just after recommending a ‘Greenfield’ mine be approved in Queensland.

Transcript

00:00There seems to be a disagreement over the definition of new coal mine. Tanya Plibersek,

00:08the Environment Minister, approved the Vulcan South mine in Queensland's Bowen Basin late

00:13yesterday. It's owned by a mining company called Vitranite. And when that company applied,

00:17it called itself a greenfield site. It said it was separate to a mine that is existing,

00:23owned by the same company also in that area. The Queensland government, when it went through

00:29its assessment process, agreed with that and said that there were two separate mines. Minister

00:34Plibersek approved this mine yesterday and then minutes later posted on social media

00:41an image which compared the Coalition Government's record on coal mines to Labor's record. She

00:48said that in 2014, the Coalition approved eight new coal mines and in 2024, the Labor

00:54government had approved zero. Now, this was met with some pretty immediate backlash from

01:01not only people on social media, but environmental groups and the Greens as well, who say that

01:07it is a new coal mine. Minister Plibersek's office, when they were approached by the ABC,

01:14said that independent experts and her department considered that it was an extension of a coal

01:21mine and therefore not a new one. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has been on the ABC this

01:27morning saying that the Labor government shouldn't be approving new coal mines, that it's a bad look

01:32for the Albanese government. But Energy Minister Chris Bowen defended that. He said that this is a

01:39mine that is vital for steelmaking and the future of steelmaking in Australia. These extensions to

01:46existing coal mine operations are for metallurgical coal, coal that gets used for steelmaking. Now,

01:51all due respect to Sarah, I'd like an explanation as to how you can make steel without coal at the

01:56moment. Green steel is coming. We're investing in it. It's got a great future, but it's not here

02:00yet. And the fact of the matter is, when the Greens talk about these things, the Greens political

02:05party talks about these things, they really just lump all coal in together. One of the other

02:11concerns that environmental groups and the Greens have with this particular mine is that Vitranite,

02:17the company that owns it, is also under criminal investigation for allegedly doing mining works

02:23on a proposed site without federal approval and clearing 47 hectares of koala habitat.

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