MUSWELLBROOK Shire Council is to be commended for its efforts to do what the NSW government has refused to do.
The state government has presided over an almost ten-fold increase in the coal tonnage mined from the Muswellbrook Shire alone over the past 10 years. In doing so, it has enriched its own coffers in Sydney with coal royalties but has failed to make a fair reinvestment of mining proceeds in the region.
After years of complaints the government appears to be on the verge of producing a strategic plan to help manage competing land uses in the Hunter. Past disappointments, however, mean that many people in the region are pessimistic about the likely result.
Against that background, Muswellbrook Shire Council is drafting its own mining land use policy to clarify the expectations of the Upper Hunter community.
The council's preliminary thoughts will be familiar to most Hunter people who support the coal industry and its valuable contribution to the regional economy but who want constraints imposed on its growth in order to preserve quality of life and long-term economic diversity.
Typically, that translates into a desire to protect public health, the viability of agricultural land, major environmental assets and water resources, both on the surface and underground.
At the same time, the council is working with other mining-affected local government bodies on a project to manage the economic and social challenges of the coal boom.
That too, is wise, since the government is discussing the possibility of - at long last - putting some coal royalty funds back into the areas from which they were drawn. Hunter councils need to work as hard as they can in order to avoid ad hoc spending decisions that might waste whatever hard-won cash is made available.
Mining presents the Upper Hunter with two kinds of economic challenges. Some are immediate, such as the need for affordable housing, better roads and transport infrastructure and better health and welfare safety nets for residents who miss out on high mining incomes but have to cope with the higher prices they induce.
Other challenges relate to the post-mining future. Good leadership demands some effort to identify and preserve the assets that will sustain viable communities after the coal resources are gone.
Political malady
SOME of the Hunter's public health shortcomings may be partly treated by better education. Programs aimed at lifting awareness of the ill-effects of obesity, smoking and alcohol abuse, for example, have worked in the past and will probably work in the future.
But other issues, such as lack of access to health care, will only be tackled when resources are made available by governments. Long queues for specialist oncologists, for example, can't be blamed on the Hunter's lower-than-average socio-economic status.
The problem, instead, is lower-than-average political influence. Only constant agitation will cure that malady.
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