Mr Souris said the fund was modelled on the highly successful National Party “Royalties for Regions” programme in Western Australia.

“The concerns of mining communities, such as the Upper Hunter Electorate, over the state of roads and other vital community infrastructure have been heard.”

“Mining does cause extra traffic, increases in costs to local government and other impacts.”

The Coalition will inject $160m into infrastructure projects in mining affected communities in the first term of government and immediately undertake an economic assessment of mining affected communities to determine the taxes raised by the State and how much is returned in infrastructure and services, said Mr Souris.

“This recognises the stress placed on local communities feeling the cumulative environmental impacts of mining and the congestion on resources that is placed on traffic flows, health requirements, educational opportunities including TAFE, lack of police strengths and the general run down of staffing of government departments such as Water Resources, Crown Land, National Parks & Wildlife, Agriculture and the increased pressures on local government.”

Unlike the present Labor Government which has granted dozens of new exploration licences for coal and gas, the Coalition is interested in ensuring a proper environmental assessment, new factors such as cumulative impacts, close proximity to the urban built up environment and a proper evaluation of the economic value of existing industries and strategic agricultural land and food security are all taken into account before the granting of exploration licences or mining leases and whether existing exploration licences will be able to proceed.

“This will be a direct benefit to the communities of Singleton, Dungog, Gloucester, Muswellbrook, Upper Hunter, Liverpool Plains, Great Lakes, Mid-Western Regional and Gunnedah Shires.”

“This Coalition policy of resources to mining affected regions will redress the widely held view that mining regions contribute vast revenues in royalties and other taxes such as payroll tax and receive very little recognition for the contribution made,” Mr Souris concluded.