A new year for the Hunter opens without fanfare, new transport infrastructure is stalled, an urban planning experiment has been cast aside, a transition out of coal delayed.
For much of this century the region's economy has had two drivers: population growth and the construction and operation of coal mines. People now worry about the sustainability of each one.
Population growth is like a Ponzi scheme. Keep the numbers rolling in, fuel demand for new houses and apartments, create good jobs in the construction sector, attract young tradies and their families, build more homes, and so it goes, more feeds more.
But when population growth stalls, the economic fall-out doesn't look pretty.
A dependence on the coal sector has its own worries. Coal is the worst of the fossil fuels for greenhouse gas emissions.
The pressure to end coal mining is ceaseless. International agreements will become harsher for coal. Banks and investment funds will strangle the sector's access to finance. Alternative energy sources will become cheaper, more reliable.
The end to coal is coming.
The need for economic drivers for the Hunter beyond population growth and coal has been known for some time. Governments have been assembling solutions.
One was the creation of the NSW Greater Cities Commission. This body had the aspiration of forging a highly liveable mega-city across complimentary urban centres stretching from Wollongong to Newcastle. Car-dependent, sprawling residential estates, distant from jobs and amenities, were to be discouraged. People would be guaranteed reliable local public transport linking local jobs, health and education services.
Then the megacity would be linked by fast inter-city transport services. The professional services sectors would decentralise as a consequence, sharing high-paid, this-century jobs currently monopolised by the Sydney CBD.
But the Greater Cities Commission was axed in June last year by the incoming state Labor government. In conjunction, plans for a faster rail connection to Sydney, on the back of committed upgrades to the old 19th century Sydney to Newcastle service, were scrapped. Then much trumpeted promises by the incoming federal Labor government for an eastern Australia high speed rail (HSR) network were muted. A solitary Newcastle-Sydney HSR service continues to be investigated, apparently, but no one is holding their breath for a genuine commitment.
Up the valley, there is anxiety about where the federal Labor government's Net Zero Economy Agency is headed. The agency was established last year to formulate plans to ensure the transition to renewable energy at the expense of coal and other fossil fuels doesn't leave communities behind. The coal sector has a dark history of leaving regions abandoned when coal investments cease.
The Net Zero Agency was expected to be up and running by now. Yet agency chair Greg Combet has twice postponed much anticipated National Press Club addresses where the bones of the agency's plans were expected to be revealed.
In the absence of growth plans and fast reliable transport services, then, the Lower Hunter will continue to get the worst type of urban growth on offer. Cookie-cutter estates, devoid of jobs and local amenities, will continue to jump out of forest and farmland, like along the Minmi-Cameron Park corridor and westward up the Hunter Expressway.
The next frontier will be along an upgraded M1 to Karuah. Leap-frogging is the worst type of urban development, the format urban planners warn most against, but here we go again.
Meanwhile, uncertainly about the future of coal means coal workers will increasingly be pressured to adjust pay and working conditions to shore up the profits of the last of the coal barons. Screwing the worker when times are tough has always been the go-to strategy of the barons.
Coal exporting has been underway in the Hunter for 23 decades. It is unlikely to complete two more. But planning for the end is delayed. Much is invested in Mr Combet and his team.
We live with hope. Happy new year.
