Singleton Council commented twice and backed it the third time. Its HVO submission puts closure at $4.8 billion

What changed, and when

Hunter Valley Operations sits in the Singleton local government area, and Singleton Council has been a participant in this assessment for three years. Its position has moved.

The 2023 issues list is not a short one. As the council's own letter records it, the submission raised interactions with neighbouring mines on water, tailings and overburden management and the phasing of rehabilitation and closure; Evidence to support the effectiveness of existing controls in reducing impacts of air quality, in particular PM10 and PM2.5; the projects' contribution to the NSW net-zero by 2050 target and in particular Scope 1 emissions; consequences for housing supply, affordability and availability; the impacts of mine closure and in particular, early closure; biodiversity offsets and whether the required credits are available to purchase; consistency with the Hunter Regional Plan 2041; and that on-site disposal of waste including potentially contaminated materials such as tyres, conveyor belts and drilling wastes, will result in environmental impacts that have not been assessed.

How the council squares it

The submission does not disown any of that, and it is worth being fair about how it is argued. Its opening position is that nothing said before or now preclude a decision by the Independent Planning Commission to approve the Projects, subject to stringent, robust and transparent conditions of consent.

It then frames the support as conditional in substance if not in form. Council's submissions support a governance, transparency and partnership approach that provide confidence to Council, the community, the regulator and the proponent over the life of Projects that will be long-term in the LGA, and its recommended conditions demonstrate that Council's support is informed, constructive and focused on achieving the best possible outcomes for Singleton and the Hunter Region. Staff reviewed the department's assessment report and proposed conditions specifically to show how these themes provide for an orderly shift to post mining economic outcomes.

That is a defensible position and not a contradiction. A council can hold that a mine should continue and that the conditions attached to it should be tighter. What has changed is that in 2023 and 2024 it did not say the first part, and now it does.

The number the submission leads with

The economic case rests on modelling the council commissions from REMPLAN, applied to a scenario of the projects not being approved. It starts from a direct loss of 1,500 mining jobs and works outward through supply chains and household spending.

In the submission's words, a direct loss of 1,500 mining jobs would ultimately result in nearly 3,000 jobs being lost across the Singleton economy once supply-chain and household spending effects are considered, more than half a billion dollars in wages would leave the local economy annually, and the reduction in output is representing one of the most significant economic shocks conceivable for the Singleton LGA. Regionally it names engineering services, equipment supply, transport and logistics, professional services, manufacturing, and retail and hospitality as the exposed sectors.

Read these as what they are. This is input-output modelling of a counterfactual, produced for a submission arguing a position, and it measures the effect of the mine stopping rather than of the continuation being refused, which are not identical: refusal would end the extension, not switch off the existing operation overnight. The numbers are the council's, the method is REMPLAN's, and we have not independently modelled anything. What they usefully establish is the scale the council believes it is arguing about.

The conflict that was declared, and handled

When the information report came back on 18 August, the minutes record that Cr Jenkins declared a non-significant non-pecuniary interest in the HVO item, in her own words, as I have a family member directly employed by Glencore at HVO. The minutes then record Cr Hollee Jenkins leaving the meeting and returning around that item.

We are reporting that because it happened and because it is the system working, not because it is a problem. In a shire where the mine is among the largest employers, a councillor having a family member on site is close to unavoidable, and the answer the Act provides is exactly what she did: declare it on the record and step out. The same meeting has Mayor Sue Moore declaring a significant non-pecuniary interest in an unrelated quarry submission, on the basis that the development would affect her life, her business and her family's lifestyle. Both are in the public minutes.

Why it matters now

The Commission has not decided. As we reported on 28 August, it asked the applicant for further information and requested an extension of time on 27 August, and the case outcome is listed as pending. The submissions are therefore still the live material, and this one comes from the council closest to the operation.

Our view is that the shift from comment-only to formal support is the fact worth recording here, and it should be recorded without either of the easy framings. It is not a council abandoning its concerns: they are restated in the same document, and the submission's whole argument is that approval should carry stringent conditions. Nor is it a formality: a resolution to formally support is a different instrument from a submission that comments, and the Commission will read it that way.

What we would watch: whether the recommended conditions the council attached in 2024 appear in whatever the Commission ultimately imposes, because that is the test of whether support-with-conditions bought anything. And whether the air quality, Scope 1 emissions and waste-disposal questions from 2023 are answered anywhere in the assessment, since the council has not withdrawn them.

Sources

1. Singleton Council, Council Meeting Agenda with Attachments, 18 August 2026 (PDF, downloaded and read 30 August 2026): item GM59/26 and its Attachment 1, the submission letter to the Office of the Independent Planning Commissioner. Specifically the 21 July 2026 resolution in full, including the formal support for SSD-11826681 and SSD-11826621 and the direction to lodge by 2 August 2026; the account of the 18 April 2023 submission on the EIS and the 16 April 2024 submission on the Response to Submissions Report, both quoted as providing comment only; the quoted list of issues raised in 2023 including air quality and PM10 and PM2.5, Scope 1 emissions, housing supply, early closure, biodiversity offsets, the Hunter Regional Plan 2041 and the on-site waste disposal passage; the quoted statements that nothing precludes approval subject to stringent, robust and transparent conditions, on the governance, transparency and partnership approach, on Council's support being informed and constructive, and on an orderly shift to post mining economic outcomes; and the REMPLAN-based economic analysis including the 1,500 direct job figure, the quoted supply-chain and household spending effect, the quoted characterisation of the shock, and every figure in Table 1.
2. Singleton Council, Minutes of the Council Meeting, 18 August 2026 (PDF, downloaded and read 30 August 2026): that GM59/26 was noted; the quoted declaration by Cr Jenkins of a non-significant non-pecuniary interest in GM59/26 on the basis of a family member employed by Glencore at HVO; the record of Cr Hollee Jenkins leaving and returning to the meeting around that item; and Mayor Sue Moore's declaration of a significant non-pecuniary interest in GM54/26, the Bluestone Hard Rock Quarry submission.
3. The Connection Point, The decision on mining Hunter Valley Operations to 2042 and 2045 has slipped, 28 August 2026: our own earlier reporting from the Commission's case record, for the status of the two applications and the 27 August extension request.

Methodology. The agenda and minutes were downloaded from Singleton Council's own InfoCouncil portal and read directly; every quotation and figure is from those documents. The economic figures are the council's, produced with REMPLAN, and are input-output modelling of a scenario in which the projects do not proceed. We have not modelled anything ourselves, have not independently assessed the REMPLAN method, and note in the text that modelling the mine stopping is not the same as modelling a refusal of the continuation. We have not contacted Singleton Council, Glencore or the Commission. The interests declared by Cr Jenkins and Mayor Moore are reported because the public minutes record them and because they were properly declared; no impropriety is suggested or implied by either.

Work at HVO, or read this submission differently? Tell us and we will check it against the council's documents and log the outcome here.