The Hunter will also be impacted by the introduction of the carbon tax and mooted cuts to the diesel fuel tax rebate.

“Mining jobs in the Hunter will bear the brunt of a slowdown to the State’s biggest export industry,” NSWMC chief executive Stephen Galilee said.

According to the research carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Monash University for the NSWMC, the Hunter region will be hit very hard with nearly 16% lower gross regional product in the Upper Hunter region by 2018 and 5000 fewer coal mining jobs in the Upper Hunter by 2018, leading to an overall impact of nearly 1000 fewer jobs across the region that same year.

Real wages would decline by over 9% in the Upper Hunter by 2026 and the research also finds that the decline in mining triggered by the draft plans will lead to declines in other sectors, including construction, hotels and cafes and transport services.

“This research found that coal mining generates nearly 60 times the amount of company tax as horse farming and viticulture as well as $1.7 billion in state government royalties,” Galilee said.

“The report confirms that the draft plans are skewed against mining in NSW. The government intends to roll-out this policy across the entire state so it’s critical that we get it right. The economic price is too high to ignore the facts and get the balance wrong.”

These findings form part of the NSW Minerals Council’s submission on the NSW Government’s draft strategic regional land use plans released for the Upper Hunter and New England North West regions in early March.

The study found that under a medium impact scenario the draft plans are forecast to hit Government revenues with the loss of an average of around $1 billion a year in royalties for the next 20 years.