Rod at the Tarrawonga PAC hearing, sharing a laugh with Whitehaven’s Danny Young

The NSW Planning and Assessment Commission has given its approval to the Tarrawonga coal project.  We made a submission to the environmental impact assessment of the project and also presented to the PAC in Boggabri late last year.

Our submission and presentation made a number of criticisms of the economic assessment, by Gillespie Economics:

• Estimates of economic benefits retained in Australia seemed optimistic, yet there was no discussion of the methodology behind them
• Greenhouse gas emissions did not include the marginal increase in world emissions
• Underground mining alternatives were not considered
• Numerous external costs were omitted or inadequately considered, such as health impacts, impacts on Leard State Forest and social values
• Input output modelling was certain to overstate the economic impacts of the project
• Calculations in the economic assessment could not be replicated

Despite going into considerable detail on these points, no mention was made of them in the proponent’s response to submissions.  The PAC’s response was hardly better.  They noted:

Concerns with the proponent’s economic assessment; and

Concerns about the distribution of benefits and profits and suggestions that the mine is not necessary for Australia as the coal and profits will go overseas.

As none of our points have ever been addressed by the proponents, the planning department or the PAC, I can only restate our claims (in the SMH) that economic assessment is accepted by the department without scrutiny and that the PAC have decided environmental economics doesn’t matter.

An interesting side point on the PAC –  the only commissioner on the PAC who claims economics qualifications in their bio is Paul Forward.  What doesn’t appear on his bio for the PAC is that he is a principal at Evans and Peck.  Evans and Peck consult heavily to the mining and “hydrocarbons” industries.

Sunset at Maules Creek, on Phil Laird’s farm, December 2012

Update: Rod’s piece in the SMH got quite a bit of attention.

Whitehaven Coal’s Maules Creek Mine has been in the news this week, after anti-coal activist, Jonothan Moylan, sent a hoax email to the media, claiming that ANZ was withdrawing support from the project.  Several media outlets ran with the story and Whitehaven’s share price was temporarily affected.

The story is still unfolding, with ASIC investigating Moylan’s actions and Greens politicians publicly endorsing the hoax.  We’ll write more about it once the dust settles, but for today I will repost some files related to our work on the Maules Creek project.

In all of these documents, our main point is that planning processes in Australia don’t ask the question “Is this project in the public interest?”.  This most important question should be asked at the start of the process, not in an obscure appendix of an environmental impact statement.  Economic assessment commissioned by project proponents should be subject to close scrutiny by the public service and the media, not just by groups like us and the Maules Creek Community Council.

Here is the original economic assessment of the mine, by Gillespie Economics:

Gillespie Economics 2011 Maules Creek Economic Assessment

Here is our initial review:

Ecolarge Sep 2011 Maules Creek Submission

Our review was highly critical of Gillespie Economics’ assessment.  So much so that the mine proponents then commissioned the Australian National University’s Professor Jeff Bennett to conduct a separate review of the Gillespie Economics assessment.  Here it is:

Bennett 2011 Review of economic assessment

The proponents’ response to submissions is a little large to post, but here is a hyperlink.

We responded to this response, both in a blog post and with a more detailed report:

Ecolarge Dec 2011 response to submissions

One more blog post relating to the Planning and Assessment Commission’s approval and their dismissal of environmental economic assessment as “crude”.

We made a submission to the NSW Treasury and Department of Planning Guideline for the use of Cost Benefit Analysis in mining and coal seam gas proposals.  We think the guidelines are a good start, but could be improved: