NSW to legislate so Mount Pleasant coal mine can lift output by 32% after High Court ruling
The Guardian Australia reported on 19 October that Premier Chris Minns will introduce a bill letting MACH Energy lift Mount Pleasant production from 12.5 million to 16.5 million tonnes a year, a 32 per cent increase, until 2032. The Sydney Morning Herald and ABC News said the plan follows a High Court decision on the mine's expansion approval. Minns said about 400 jobs would be lost before Christmas without action, the Guardian reported. The Nightly said miners welcomed the one-off intervention. The Guardian said the consent takes effect only after MACH Energy signs a jobs guarantee through 2032. ABC News said the legislation is weeks away.
The High Court ruled that planning bodies must weigh the climate effects of a coal mine's downstream emissions, so a statute that grants consent directly sidesteps that assessment step for this mine. The case will test how far a state parliament can go in overriding the practical effect of a court ruling about environmental law.
If you work in or near the Hunter Valley coal sector, the bill determines whether hundreds of jobs continue past Christmas. For everyone else it signals how NSW will treat future mine approvals that face similar legal challenges.
The government and miners argue the intervention protects around 400 jobs and keeps a working mine operating while longer-term planning is resolved, as the Guardian and The Nightly report.
Environment groups, quoted by the Guardian, say the bill bypasses a landmark court ruling and amounts to political interference, and the Sydney Morning Herald reports Minns invoking One Nation to defend coal jobs over climate targets.
Confirmed: the bill's proposed production figures, the 2032 end date and the jobs condition. Not confirmed: whether it passes and in what form, or what happens to the bigger 2048 expansion. Today, watch for Greens and crossbench positions and for any legal challenge to the bill.
DailyDrop Australia edition No. 16 · Morning · TUE., OCT. 20, 2026