Muswellbrook mayor demands action this election as Hunter stares down the barrel of 12,000 job losses

Transcript

00:00Surely there couldn't be too many bigger issues in this federal election than 12,000 job losses.

00:05I mean, we talk about transition for so long. I mean, it's not a transition, it's an industrial

00:10closure. We're talking 12,000 job losses within a month or two of each other in less than five

00:16years' time. We talk about transition, it talks about a slow move away from coal. It's not a slow

00:22move away from coal. And the mines themselves, it won't stop in 2030. The mines themselves now

00:27report that the industry will be half of what it is by 2035. So you're looking at another

00:3212,000 or 15,000 jobs in the next five years. So this doesn't stop. This is the first of

00:38job losses. And they're major job losses. 12,000 jobs is three or four times the job losses that

00:44occurred at the BHP Steelworks when it closed. So it is the biggest industrial closure that New

00:49South Wales has ever seen. I don't think enough is being done. Lots of talk. There's lots and lots

00:53of talk being done. But we need some binding commitments now. We've had commitments, I guess,

00:58from all levels of government for a long time now. I'm talking a long time. I'm talking 10 years.

01:04But at the moment, they still stand as that. They still stand as just a commitment.

01:07But there's no binding commitments. Nothing's actually happened on the ground.