This is the largest single decision about Hunter coal currently in front of a NSW decision-maker, and the whole process is public. What follows is the record as the Commission publishes it, with the two things we could not establish said plainly at the end.
What is being decided
Two applications, assessed together. The mines sit at Liddell, Lemington and
Howick for HVO North and Warkworth for HVO South. The NSW Planning
Portal lists HVO North in Muswellbrook Shire with a current status of
Recommendation
. The Commission's panel is chaired by Simon Smith,
with Michael Chilcott and Janett Milligan.
The figure to hold onto is the Commission's own: about 430 million tonnes of run-of-mine coal, with the two mines running to 2042 and 2045. Those end dates are the point. They sit well beyond the closure dates of the coal-fired power stations this region has spent three years talking about, which makes this a decision about the Hunter's coal industry after the local demand for thermal coal has changed shape.
The process, in the Commission's own dates
| Date | Step |
|---|---|
| 21 May 2026 | Ministerial request to hold a public hearing |
| 12 June 2026 | Referral received, with the department's assessment report |
| 15 June 2026 | Submissions and speaker registrations open |
| 3 July 2026 | Meeting with the applicant |
| 8 July 2026 | Meetings with the planning department, Muswellbrook Shire Council and Singleton Council |
| 14 July 2026 | Meeting with DCCEEW |
| 16 and 17 July 2026 | Public hearing days one and two, Branxton Community Hall |
| 22 July 2026 | Public hearing day three, online |
| 24 July 2026 | Meeting with the Net Zero Commission |
| 29 and 31 July 2026 | Applicant responses to questions on notice |
| 5 August 2026 | Submissions close, 11.59pm |
| 27 August 2026 | Request to the applicant for further information, and Commission request for an extension of time. Both in progress. |
Every step above except the last two is marked complete, and a transcript or document is published against almost all of them. Three of those meetings are worth noticing on their own: the Commission met both councils whose shires hold the mines, and it met the Net Zero Commission, which is the body established to monitor the state's emissions targets. A panel that asks that body for a meeting is asking a question it thinks matters to the decision.
What an extension request means, and what it does not
Our reading, labelled as such. The Commission has a period in which to determine an application. Asking for more of it, on the same day as asking the applicant for further information, is the ordinary shape of a panel that has finished hearing and found something it still wants answered. It says nothing about which way the decision goes, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Extensions are common on large contested applications and they are published precisely because the process is meant to be visible.
What it does mean, concretely, is that a decision many people expected in August is not going to arrive in August, and that the next thing to appear on the case page will be either the applicant's response or the outcome.
Two things we could not establish, and we would rather say so
- How long an extension was sought, and what information was requested. Both 27 August documents are published as scanned images with no text layer, so they cannot be read by any tool we have and we did not guess at their contents. They are linked in the sources below for anyone who wants to open them by eye.
- Who the applicant is. The Commission's case record refers throughout to
the applicant
and names no company in any page or document we were able to read, and the Planning Portal serves its applicant field only to a browser. We are not going to name a company on inference, so this piece does not.
The submissions are public too
Submissions closed on 5 August and the case page carries them. As one example of what is
in front of the panel, the Hunter Jobs Alliance, a coalition of unions and
community organisations, published its own submission on 31 July arguing that transition
planning should be treated as a continuing obligation throughout a mine's operating
life
rather than something addressed at closure. That is their stated position,
attributed, not a finding of ours, and it is one submission among many. We note it
because the worker and community side of a mine continuation is a perspective this masthead
has not previously carried, and it is now on the public record.
How we did this
Read from the Independent Planning Commission's case page for the HVO North and South Open Cut Coal Continuation Projects, read on 28 August 2026, which publishes the case progress timeline, the panel membership, the application numbers, the project description and the locations. The status of HVO North is from the NSW Planning Portal project page, read the same day. The Hunter Jobs Alliance position is from its own publications page, read the same day, and is attributed to it. We have not contacted the Commission, the applicant, either council or the Hunter Jobs Alliance. Nothing here expresses a view on whether the applications should be approved, and no allegation is made against any party.
Sources
- NSW Independent Planning Commission, HVO North and South Open Cut Coal Continuation Projects (SSD-11826681 and SSD-11826621, read 28 August 2026): the project description including approximately 430 million tonnes of ROM coal through to 2042 and 2045; the locations; the panel chaired by Simon Smith with Michael Chilcott and Janett Milligan; every date in the table above; and the case outcome listed as pending.
- NSW Independent Planning Commission, Commission request for extension on time and Request to the applicant for further information (both 27 August 2026): linked for readers. Both are scanned images without a text layer, so their contents are not reported here.
- NSW Planning Portal, HVO North Open Cut Coal Continuation Project (read 28 August 2026): Muswellbrook Shire and the current status of Recommendation.
- Hunter Jobs Alliance, publications (read 28 August 2026): its submission of 31 July 2026 to the Commission, quoted above as its stated position.