Whitehaven’s Bernie O’Neill has clocked up 50 years in the mining industry spending time at mine sites across NSW and Queensland doing what he says has been a privilege he’s not ready to give up yet.

Bernie, originally from Ayr in North Queensland, always wanted to be an engineer.

“I did all the science-related subjects through school keeping in mind I initially wanted to become a civil engineer.

“Instead, I studied mining engineering at the University of Queensland. Everyone had to do the same course for the first year regardless of what stream of engineering you wanted to pursue. We had to do vacation experience, and I ended up at Mt Isa and worked underground at the copper mine. That is where I fell in love with mining.

“I loved the work and the comradery. You work quite close with your crew underground, I really enjoyed that.

“As it turned out, my grandfather had been a shift boss at Mt Isa back in the 1930s and my mother and father had got married in Mt Isa so there were also family connections.”

Bernie graduated with Honours and began his career working on a new sand mining project on K’gari, formerly known as Fraser Island. He was there for the life of the mine which only turned out to be a couple of years because the island became a World Heritage listed site.

Bernie helped open it up and then shut it down, which turned out to be the theme of his career.

“I went from there to the Yabulu nickel refinery in Townsville and then entered the Queensland coal mining industry which was a much better option for my family. I spent three years at Peak Downs in the late 70s, early 80s when the industry was booming.

“Around that time a few large open cut mines were being developed in the Hunter Valley and a lot of people were recruited out of Queensland including myself to head to the Drayton mine in the region.

“After that I worked at most of the open cut mines in the Hunter. I worked at Hebden which supplied coal to the local power stations. I started out there as a mining engineer and got promoted to mine manager.

“At the time I was the youngest mine manager in the Hunter Valley at just 32 years of age.

“I worked there for about five years until the mine lost its contract with the power station and I had to shut it down and retrench everyone including myself – I was the last person to turn the lights off! After that I moved to a number of other operations in the Hunter taking on managerial roles.

“Back in those days there were a lot of smaller companies, a lot of them were family owned as well. So, over the years I have worked at a mixture of larger and smaller enterprises with workforces from 200 to up to 1000 people.”

Over five decades, Bernie has seen a lot of change in the coal mining industry particularly when it comes to safety, technology and environmental rehabilitation.

“When I started you just pulled on your shorts and a t-shirt, put your boots on and off you went to work,” laughed Bernie, “thankfully it’s much different these days.”

“When I started in coal there was nothing in terms of rehab, we weren’t even recovering topsoil. It became more of a requirement as open cut mines developed and became more integrated in communities.”

With the industry progressing environmentally, Bernie found some of his most rewarding work in rehabilitation.

“The biggest compliment I’ve ever had was when I worked in a mine in NSW that had been operating for 20 years. In that time, they’d done no rehab at all. The first year I was there we held a combined Christmas party and Open Day and the wife of one of the workers questioned me as to why we were having the party at an ugly mine site. I didn’t really know how to respond.

“In the following twelve months we made a concerted effort to catch up on rehab and clean the place up. The same woman came up to me at next year’s party and said how much better the place looked than it did the last year. Hearing someone who didn’t have any experience in mining appreciate the difference confirmed you were doing the right thing. Back in those days, I was planting up to 150 thousand trees a year and re-establishing native habitat. That mine is now closed and those trees are fully grown and providing that habitat.”

As well as the rewarding work Bernie has done in the rehabilitation space, he said being at mines from start to end is also something that has been quite rewarding.

“I have been fortunate enough to open and start a number of operations and be there from the feasibility stage, approval and then into production so that has been a rewarding, but interesting challenge.

“I also played a big role in closing a lot of mine sites, and while it was a privilege it was also very hard personally. I had the job of retrenching everyone. Each and every time I had to do that, I made a concerted effort to have a personal discussion with each and every person no matter how many there were and do my best to make sure they could move on to another opportunity.

“I was in a position with a lot of contacts so I wanted to try and do the best I could by those impacted by the closures – it wasn’t their fault at the end of the day.”

At the age of 71, Bernie has no plans to stop any time soon, currently working on one of Whitehaven’s newer projects in the north west, the Vickery Extension Project.

“I do various things with Whitehaven but at the moment I am assisting with putting Vickery through its feasibility study. It has all its government approvals, but it must go through an internal process and also a design process and everything else to do with building a project.

“I work because I like to, not because I have to. I like to do what I do, it’s rewarding, and I enjoy the comradery of the people around me.”

Bernie said he sees a positive future for coal, but at the end of the day a transition will be inevitable.

“I see a positive future for coal. It’s part of a transition that will take decades and it remains an important part of the global energy mix. It’s especially important for steel making coal as there’s no real substitute for that at this stage.

“Ultimately, there will be a transition, and we need to accept that as part and parcel of the way the world is moving but coal will continue to have its place for many decades yet. I’m excited for the next generation who will get to experience the wonderful opportunities the coal mining industry has to offer, which I am very grateful to have enjoyed over the last 50 years.”