THE state's peak mining body will on Tuesday launch a campaign seeking urgent changes to planning in NSW following the matter hitting "crisis point".
The NSW Minerals Council announced it had decided to begin the broad advertising due to "the damage being done by the crisis in [the] planning system, especially in the regions".
"The industry has repeatedly warned the Planning Minister of the risks to the NSW economy and has been reassured that reforms to planning timeframes and processes would be pursued," chief executive Stephen Galilee said.
"However, no action has been taken and the problems have only gotten worse.
"These issues reached crisis point last week following the Independent Planning Commission's decision to refuse consent for the Bylong project."
The Newcastle Herald reported last week that the commission's landmark ruling on Bylong reasoned that future generations would pay for the project's benefits to the present.
"The commission is of the view that the distribution of costs and benefits over and beyond the life of the mine is temporally inequitable in that the economic benefits accrue to the current generation and the environmental, agricultural and heritage costs are borne by future generations," it found.
There was also a "reasonable level of uncertainty" about the economic benefits, the commission said.
Opponents to the mine hailed the decision as proof the state "is getting its priorities right".
The mine's owner, KEPCO, had claimed it spent $750 million on the project proposal. If approved, it would have developed an open cut and underground mine producing up to 120 million tonnes of coal over 25 years.
"This refusal has meant the loss of 1,100 jobs for the local region and over a billion dollars in investment to NSW, and yet the Minister seems happy to let these opportunities slip away," Mr Galilee said on Tuesday.
He said greater consistency and certainty were required in the state's system.
"This goes beyond the mining sector," he said.
"The NSW planning system has become a lottery for all major developments.
"A lengthy and costly assessment process taking years and involving multiple government departments and agencies can deliver a positive recommendation, and then be ignored by an unelected, unaccountable panel of part-time appointees from the Independent Planning Commission.
"This is simply not sustainable in a modern economy."
The NSW Minerals Council campaign launches days after thousands took part in rallies across Australia, including in Newcastle, calling for action on climate change.
Lock the Gate spokeswoman Georgina Woods said it was "common sense" that some areas were inappropriate for mining.
