Helen Ridout is the person in question, and while she is undoubtedly a highly skilled operator in the fields of big business and financial management she has a lot to learn about the process of mining – and quite a bit to learn about commodity-price cycles.

What she said on an ABC television program on Monday night jarred with everyone in the mining industry, and must have caused some of her peers to wonder whether she had done her homework before voicing an opinion.

According to Ridout there is more potential for the food industry in the Liverpool Plains region of NSW than there is for coal mining, implying that there is a choice between one or the other and not recognising that the two can live together quite amicably.

Anyone who has visited a modern mining operation knows that the process does not end with the removal of coal seams. It continues until the land form is restored and the surface returned to productive use.

In other words, mining and farming make use of the same patch of planet earth with both extracting value from it. Coal mining for a few years. Farming for longer.

But, as for the implication in her other comments about mining endangering land and the aquifers that’s when The Hog gets a little more excited because of the inference that farming is a benign occupation that does no damage to the land.

When it comes to environmental degradation, which is the charge often levelled at mining, the biggest single cause of damage in Australia is farming, a fact that too many people ignore when they snipe at mining.

As for another of Ridout’s comments about low coal prices, which appear aimed at questioning the financial viability of the industry, she is obviously not up to speed on what’s happening in the commodities world where Australian coal is being seen as a winner.

Perhaps even more remarkably, Australian coal is winning thanks to the policies being pursued by the Reserve Bank, of which she is a board member.

Lower official Australian interest rates, which she has a say in setting, have put fresh pressure on the value of the dollar, which she is keen to see lowered – triggering an optimistic report on coal from the international consultancy, Wood Mackenzie.

According to Rory Simington, Wood Mackenzie’s principal Asia Pacific coal analyst, Australian coal is emerging as a winner in 2015 thanks to a combination of producing high-quality material and the depreciation of the Australian dollar.

“Australia is a stand-out competitor in both the metallurgical and thermal coal trade, but particularly the former,” Simington said on the day before Ridout had her say on coal.

“The scalability of Australian mines and their high coal quality has enabled the displacement of major competitors in the US, Canada and Indonesia.

“This trend is likely to continue thanks to the strong operating performance plus currency depreciation.”

As The Hog digested the Wood Mackenzie view of the Australian coal world, which is perhaps the most optimistic seen for several years, and the negative opinions of Ridout, he paused to wonder whether the two views where about the same industry.

The Minerals Council of Australia, thankfully, was quick to pick holes in Ridout’s comments though why an industry lobby group needed to tell a Reserve Bank board member that coal is an industry worth $40 billion a year to the country, and employs 57,000 people is a question that she needs to consider.

The kindest thing that can be said about Ridout’s remarks is that she felt a need to say something that pleased the producers of the ABC’s Q&A program, and the audience which is generally seen to be well Left of centre, drifting into the Greens La-La Land.

Which brings The Hog to a final comment on the Greens and their latest policy cooked up for the NSW State election – a complete ban on the export of coal within five years, followed by the phasing out of all coal mining.

What damage that would do to the NSW economy is one interesting question, as is the associated question of what would an end to coal mining (and the absence of a local source of natural gas) do to power prices.

Fortunately, there is certain to be an answer to both of those questions and it is most likely to be available in a Reserve Bank analysis of the Australian economy – perhaps Helen Ridout can provide the Greens with a briefing!