EDUCATION WILL HELP US FIND OUR NEW FUTURE
In the Cessnock LGA alone, there are some 2,000+ people directly employed by the coal industry. This brings about $200M in wages into our community every year. On top of that, the coal industry spends around $400M through more than 200 local businesses creating thousands of other jobs.
We have a wide range of views on coal and its future. Some people are really passionate in their support of coal, others are equally passionate about the climate and the need to end coalmining ASAP. And there are many people locally that don’t really have much of a view one way or the other.
In the decades ahead, the means by which we get coal out of the ground, the appetite to buy our coal and the impact of coal on our local economy will all change. That’s progress.
No matter what changes and how it changes, it is going to be really tough to find other jobs and other industries that will bring the big dollars into our local economy like coal does at the moment.
One things is for sure, coalminers are often really good spenders of their money. So that $200M that I referred to above, almost certainly gets spent in all of our local businesses. It might be at the café or the car shop; it might be at the hairdressers or on holidays; but one way or the other, it is definitely going to be helping local businesses, big and small, to survive and thrive.
And the great thing about the big money in coal is that most of it comes into our country and communities from offshore. Other nations are taking their dollars and sending them into our economy just as long as we send them our coal in return.
Coal jobs and the coal industry is going to be incredibly difficult to replace just in terms of simple dollars. The most important thing that our current coal workforce and our children can do, to hopefully make sure that they continue to earn good dollars in the decades ahead, is to get a good education and to keep on learning throughout life.
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For enquiries regarding the State Government or its departments, or to put you in contact with someone who can help, please contact my office. My office can be contacted by phoning 4991-1466, by email to cessnock@parliament.nsw.gov.au or call into 118 Vincent Street (PO Box 242), Cessnock 2325.
You can also follow me on my Facebook page “www.facebook.com/claytonbarrmp”, go to Twitter and search @claytonbarrmp or check out my website at www.claytonbarr.com.au
Cheers Clayton