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.
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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.