NEVER have I heard the boss of Darley in Australia sound as he did on Friday, hours after the NSW Planning Assessment Commission (PAC) recommended Anglo American’s revised Drayton South Coal Project not proceed.
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I have spoken to Henry Plumptre on a number of occasions over the last several years; his English-accented phone voice always impeccably polite, measured, smart and uncompromising.
On Friday he took long pauses, seemed almost disbelieving and used compassionate words to describe the vanquished.
“I am relieved, yes, very relieved,” Mr Plumptre said softly.
“It’s been a fairly horrendous five years for everyone on both sides of this and I think it’s because of the dreadful uncertainty and not knowing we’ve all endured.”
“It should never have got to this point.”
The “this” referred to by Henry Plumptre is a battle writ large in the Hunter Valley of NSW between horse breeders and a mining company.
In the simplest of terms, the London Stock Exchange-listed Anglo American wanted to develop a new open-cut coal mine called Drayton South, adjacent to its almost-exhausted Drayton mine, about 15km south of Muswellbrook.
Horse studs Coolmore Australia and Darley Australia argued the proposed new ‘greenfield’ development would encroach on their nearby operations.
The original mine footprint was challenged and knocked back before the mining giant revised its plan, reduced the size of the proposed pit, applied again to the NSW Government and sought approval.
Tens of thousands of submissions and a two-day public hearing later, the NSW Planning Assessment Commission quietly released an email at 10.08am Australian Daylight Savings Time on Friday, November 27 detailing the Commission’s rationale for rejecting the revised Drayton South Coal Project.
The PAC stated, in part:
“…the Commission has been unable to find any additional practical mitigation options or management measures that would satisfy it that the longer term future of the [Coolmore and Darley] studs could be assured if mining progressed.”
It doesn’t take long to discover just how much has been wrung out of Henry Plumptre and all who objected to, or were supportive of, this project as the planning process around it moved forward, stalled, lurched and stumbled from one stage to the next.
“You never feel confident working in the environment we’ve been working in.
“If you look around there have been six extension applications in the past six years for other mines in this region.
“You look at an area like the Liverpool Plains where there have been new mine approvals; you look at the structure around the Bulga dispute and it was hard to be confident,” he said.
“But we have fought this battle because it was not about Coolmore and Darley individually, but about the entire Hunter Valley industry.
“We were in a position to show, on three separate occasions, our industry is of significant standing, it has proven it can sustain long-term employment and it has generational capability.
“What resonates for me is the Hunter Valley industry is the epicentre of the horse breeding world in Australia; in America it’s Kentucky, in New Zealand it’s Waikato and in England it’s Newmarket,” Mr Plumptre said.
“We were facing one of the worst examples of land use conflict; it divided a community, but at the end of the day we had to fight for our industry.”
Thirty minutes before I rang Henry Plumptre, the Darley boss had taken a call made just before midnight in the Northern Hemisphere darkness.
It was from his Coolmore compatriot, Irishman Tom Magnier.
“Tom rang me from England half an hour ago and he was excited, terribly excited,” Mr Plumptre said.
“You know he has become a passionate Australian through this struggle.”
But the Darley boss was cautious and circumspect about the period ahead.
“We have always maintained we are not anti-mining and I am accepting of the existing mines that operate in the Hunter Valley.
“But we are a Critical Industry Cluster and it was the prospect of opening a new ‘greenfield’ mine so close to us that filled us with horror,” Mr Plumptre said.
“I think we need to wait for a number of days to see whether Anglo American decides if it will go to a determining PAC.
“We must let the dust settle and wait for an announcement,” he said.