A group of Hunter Valley environmental volunteers has erected a parody website on the global computer internet system to counter the coal industry’s “ceaseless tide of propaganda”.

Whiners’ website spokesman Ned Haughton said the New South Wales Minerals Council used twisted facts, emotional language and dodgy statistics to support its case, whereas the whiners case was supported by evidence and reliable references.

Minerals Council spokesman Lindsay Hermes said the coal industry’s campaign was an “education initiative to shine a light on some of the lesser known facts about mining”.

The miners’ campaign was based on facts and would continue this year, he said.

When commenting on the whiners’ website, Mr Hermes said the coal industry stood by its campaign and other people were entitled to their own opinion.

The miners’ campaign opened in November with advertisements on three regional television stations and full page spreads in four Hunter Valley newspapers, including The Argus.

It included a business lunch in Newcastle with 250 attendees and briefings to Singleton Council, the chamber of commerce and Singleton High School.

The miners campaign used photographs of a lush forest which Mr Hermes said were taken at Xstrata’s rehabilitated Westside Colliery near Newcastle.

Xstrata’s website says the pit was an open-cut which began 20 years ago and employed 19 people.

The miners’ campaign said New South Wales coalmines used just 1.4 per cent of the state’s water and up to 80 per cent of it was recycled.

The advertisements said the industry aimed to keep environmental impacts to a minimum and was reducing dust pollution and regenerating land so it could sustain native plants and animals.

The industry had the best worker safety record in the world, directly employed 80,000 in the state, indirectly employed 250,000 and provided $1.2billion in royalties to help pay for nurses, teachers and police, the advertisements said.

The whiners’ website said the coal industry was increasingly resorting to misleading spin campaigns and using a swathe of unsubstansiated rhetoric to bolster its image at a time when it had “ripped communities apart, polluted rivers, scarred arable lands and destroyed livelihoods”.

While portraying itself as the backbone of the Australian economy the mining industry was 83 per cent foreign owned, employed just 1.9 per cent of the population and received substantial tax concessions, research and development concessions and direct and indirect subsidies.