The report, which was researched by Economists at Large and The Australia Institute, claims to reveal the “true cost” of seven NSW mining and gas projects currently in the assessment pipeline, NCC campaigns director Kate Smolski said.
“This report lifts the lid on the ways that mining companies exaggerate the economic benefits and underestimate the environmental, social and economic costs of major mining and gas projects to gain approvals,” she said.
The report has found that resource companies routinely overstated economic benefits; overstated employment benefits; downplayed environmental costs; downplayed greenhouse gas emissions; and ignored health costs.
“Short-term profits often trump long-term protection of our critical land and water resources in NSW’s flawed planning and assessment process. That’s why we decided to examine more closely the claims being made to justify the destruction of wildlife and local communities,” Smolski said.
“This report clearly shows why the government must overhaul the planning system to ensure that economic claims made by developers are thoroughly assessed by an independent body.
“It also highlights profound flaws in the way that dollar values are assigned to wildlife, clean air and water, and human health for the sake of economic assessment.”
A spokesman for the Hunter Community Environment Centre, Steve Phillips, said the NSW government had failed to protect people and the environment in the Hunter region from the unrestrained expansion of the coal mining and gas industries.
The Minerals Council said the report contained no new information.
"This latest 'report' contains nothing new and is just a rehash of the same discredited anti-mining claims we have seen before, dressed up as a new report in an attempt to fool the media and the public," the council said in a statement.
"By dismissing the importance of the jobs created by mining these groups are dismissing the economic welfare of over 80,000 mining workers and their families.
"Mining provides almost all of the state's electricity needs, (so) their analysis of health impacts should also take into account the health costs of running hospitals without reliable electricity supply."
