In telephone-based market research of 323 residents undertaken during November, 40% of respondents agreed the benefits of the coal industry outweighed the negative effects and 20% strongly agreed.

A total of 13% had no opinion either way, more than the 7% who strongly disagreed.

The research uncovered some interesting findings on the topical issue of climate change.

Most respondents believed climate change would have a direct impact on their lives in the next 20 years, with 36% agreeing this would happen and 26% strongly agreeing.

But HVRF noted this had fallen from previous surveys where 80% of respondents were convinced back in 2006 and 66% in 2007.

HVRF research fellow Evan Steverson said another interesting difference was the community’s expectation climate change would have an impact on the economy.

“When we asked people what they believed the main impact of climate change would be, 44 per cent mentioned things such as increased temperatures, more extreme weather events and drought,” Steverson said.

“However, 30 per cent of respondents believed that the main impact would be on the economy through such things as increasing fuel prices, increases in the cost of living and job losses. This had increased from 21 per cent in December 2007.”

The federal government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme was recently blocked in the Senate, but a modified version of the scheme is expected to be put forward in the coming months.

In May, consultancy ACIL Tasman estimated up to 3300 coal mining jobs would be lost in the first 10 years of the implementation of the CPRS in its current form.