With global coal demand stable or declining, production from new mines will displace production in existing mines. Large scale coal development in the Galilee Basin in Queensland will significantly increase the supply of traded thermal coal and decrease coal prices. Lower prices will reduce investment in other Australian coal regions, and by extension employment in the mines of those regions.

New Galilee Basin mines will be large and highly automated, meaning they will employ fewer people per tonne of coal production. Adani have stated that in their project eventually “everything will be autonomous from mine to port.” Automated Galilee Basin mines will come at the expense of relatively job-intensive mines in other regions.

Industry analysts Wood Mackenzie modelled the effects of Galilee Basin production on other coal mining regions – the Hunter Valley, Bowen Basin and Surat Basin. They estimate that Galilee Basin production of 150 million tonnes per year would reduce coal volumes in other areas by 116 million tonnes in 2035 relative to a baseline scenario with no Galilee Basin development.

This paper estimates the effect on jobs of this relative reduction in production from established coal regions. Three methods are used to estimate this impact:

• Applying average labour productivity of existing coal mines to relative reduction in coal volume.
• Applying marginal labour productivity of existing coal mines to relative reduction in coal volume.
• Analysing estimated workforce of mines identified as being delayed or cancelled by Galilee Basin development.