Chris Hartcher: "In American terms, New South Wales is what’s called a ‘coal state’, like Kentucky is in the United States framework, and/or West Virginia was, and our economy is fundamentally dependent upon coal.  90% of the state’s electricity comes from coal, something like 90,000 in the state workforce are directly employed in the mining industry, tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of others are indirectly employed or dependent upon it in some way or another.  35% of the state’s total economy is mining.  The state’s biggest export is coal.  The port of Newcastle, named after Newcastle in the United Kingdom, is the world’s largest coal exporting port.   And we’ve been reliant upon mining in some form or another since coal was discovered in 1797, which is why Newcastle was called Newcastle, after Newcastle in the UK.  The world’s largest mining company, BHP Builderton, was actually founded here in New South Wales, western New South Wales, at a place called Broken Hill.  That’s where BHP comes from, it stands for Broken Hill Proprietary and it was originally a silver/lead load out in western New South Wales, a place called Broken Hill, and from there it developed into the world’s largest mining company.  So mining’s at the very heart of the state economy, yet mining, like so many issues, faces its challenges."

Categories: Coal in Australia, Economy, Global Markets, Jobs
Author: Chris Hartcher MP