Australia has a new Environment Minister! But even before Minister Murray Watt approved the North West Shelf gas project extension, it has been business-as-usual for the mining industry all year, with six new coal mine proposals appearing on the EPBC website since the start of 2025. The new coal projects are:

• Corvus Coal Mine (Qld): a new ‘greenfield’ mine, i.e. not an extension to an existing mine. Aiming to produce 6 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of coking coal.
• Wilpinjong Coal Mine (NSW):  Thermal coal mine seeking to extend operations by around 1.6 MTPA until 2033.
• Rix’s Creek North (NSW): Thermal and coking coal mine seeking to extend operations until 2049.
• Isaac Downs (Qld): Coking coal mine seeking to extend operations for another 22 years until 2050.
• Callan Coking Coal (Qld): Another new mine, presented as a ‘bulk-sample’ that would extract 1 million tonnes. These ‘samples’ are intended to grow into full scale mines.
• Metropolitan Coal Mine (NSW): A 2-year extension to a mine operating since 1887.

Together these new projects would mine an additional 16 MT of coal a year and generate around 41 MT of total emissions each year. Across their lifetimes these projects would generate over 723 MT of climate causing emissions.

While most of these new mines are extensions to existing mine locations, worryingly, in 2025 the mining industry still considers it a worthwhile endeavour to seek approval for greenfield sites such as Corvus Coal Mine and Callan Coking Coal. See here for more information on these.

In addition to the new entrants to Coal Mine Tracker, three existing proposals have revised plans. The Ulan Coal Mine in NSW is seeking an additional six-year extension to its current proposal to extend operations by two years. More worryingly, the recently withdrawn proposals for the mega-mine, Hunter Valley Operations North and South extensions, have returned with new proposals and slightly reduced time frame and projected coal output. Though the exact details of the new proposals are hard to pin down, with many of the documents and the website from the old proposal recycled into the new. These two projects alone would generate over 1,078 MT of total emissions over their lifetimes.

While initial impressions can be lasting impressions, the new Environment Minister, Murray Watt, can easily improve things and show Australia is serious about achieving its emissions reduction targets by rejecting the proposals for these new mines. Indeed, in just a number of days (16 June 2025) the minister has the perfect opportunity to at least step ever so slightly in that right direction when he makes a decision whether the Callan Coking Coal proposal is a controlled action and needs to be fully assessed under the EPBC framework, or given a tick and flick for a much more immediate go-ahead.