Worker’s plea to Premier
150 workers could be out of a job
IF THERE’S one thing New Acland Coal Mine operator Clinton Ruhle wishes - it’s that Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk would visit Oakey and see how much the expansion of New Acland Coal Mine is needed.
The mine is fast running out of coal and Mr Ruhle, along with his partner and two young children, are one of 150 families that are facing an uncertain future.
If the State Government does not approve Stage 3 by the mine’s ramp down deadline of September 1, production will be halved and 150 workers will be out of a job.
“I just wish (the Premier) would come out and have a look at the community and see how much we need (the expansion),” Mr Ruhle said.
“You can't plan (a future) because the government could say yes or no. That’s the hardest thing not knowing.”
WHEN Clinton Ruhle got a job at New Acland Coal Mine at the age of 22, it was an “unreal” moment in his young life.
It meant he was able to embark on a career close to Oakey, the town he grew up in, and it gave his partner the ability to stay at home and look after their kids while they were growing up.
A decade later Mr Ruhle and his partner and kids, along with 149 other working families at New Acland, are facing an uncertain future.
The mine is fast running out of coal.
If it fails to secure its outstanding approvals for its longproposed Stage 3 expansion by September 1, production will halve, costing 150 people their jobs, with significant flow-on effects to contractors and suppliers in the area.
That will mean Mr Ruhle and his family will have to pack up and leave behind their home south of Jondaryan and try to find work up north.
He said he wished Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk would come and visit Oakey and see how much the community needed the mine.
“It’s the flow-on effects, not just for us workers here but the people in the surrounding areas,” he said.
His sister works for Black Toyota - the company that services New Acland’s light vehicles.
His partner works at a local childcare centre.
His dad also works in the mine.
The government’s decision on Stage 3 will affect all their lives.
“This is where we brought all our families up. It’s not good. We really need it to go ahead,” he said.
Now 32, and with two kids aged six and nine, Mr Ruhle said the future of the mine was something he worried about
“every day”.
“It’s something I talk to my partner about nightly. You don’t know what’s going to happen so you can’t plan too much,” he said.
“We haven’t bought a house - not knowing what was happening here... six years ago we (started) looking at buying one and we sort of put it off and put it off.”
For Mr Ruhle’s colleagues Chris Bartley and Andy Scouller, they too will have to relocate if Stage 3 does not go ahead.
Mr Scouller, who currently lives at Pittsworth with his wife and family, said they’d have to look at moving to central Queensland or New South Wales if the expansion was not approved.
Mr Bartley said he was in a similar situation.
It has been 12 years since New Hope first sought approvals for Stage 3, a process that has been tied up in a series of legal battles with the Oakey Coal Action Alliance.
The company asked for a judicial review after the Land Court recommended Stage 3 not be approved in 2017.
Justice Helen Bowskill overturned that recommendation in 2018, and an appeal is ongoing.
The alliance believes the mine expansion poses an “unacceptable threat” to underground water resources.
The mine is seeking approvals for Stage 3’s mining lease, associated water licence, and continued use of the Jondaryan rail facility on a transitional basis.
In Parliamentary Estimates late last month, Natural Resources, Mines and Energy minister Dr Anthony Lynham said the government’s various departments were working to process approvals for NAC Stage 3.
He said his department had advised him a decision on the mine’s associated water licence, “the last major approval required for the project to proceed” would be made by “the end of September”.
But that will be too late for New Acland Mine general manager Dave O’Dwyer, who will have already begun to ramp down the mine.
“We’re running out of coal,” he said.
“If we ramp down, our customers go elsewhere and find coal.”
Mr O’Dwyer said that if approvals came through after the ramp down had begun, the mine might not have a market for its product.
“You don’t want to ramp up and produce a heap of coal that you can’t sell. That’s just not a way to run a business. We want to try and keep our customers, and that goes hand in hand with keeping our workforce,” he said.
“I suppose my message is we want Dr Lynham and the departments to really go through what they need to go through, but it’s really about the timing.
“We have a tight time frame and we need them to understand that. But we don’t want them to shortcut anything for us, we don’t want them to tick boxes and give us a green light.
“We want them to look at the science we’ve put in front of them and make an informed decision on our approval.”