The mining giant wondered why the commission hadn't sent through any variations on the Department of Planning's recommended conditions of consent, even while the commission is still considering whether to approve a massive expansion of Glencore's United Wambo joint coal venture with Peabody.

Consent authorities had always consulted mining companies if they were thinking of varying the department's proposed conditions, Glencore said, before helpfully noting the department had already sent its draft conditions.

Glencore asked for a copy of proposed variations, and a meeting to discuss the issue. A few days later the email was posted on the commission website.

The commission's predecessor, the Planning Assessment Commission, which ran for a decade from 2008, was the subject of repeated and strong complaints from community and environment groups across the state, including the Hunter, about the lack of transparency in its assessment processes.

In 2017 the NSW Auditor-General's office released a report which found while the PAC had reasonable processes, there was a lot it could do to not only improve the public perception it lacked transparency, but address actual transparency problems.

The Auditor-General's report makes no mention of the kind of arrangement outlined by Glencore, and the "sharing" of draft conditions of consent, at the very end of what was supposed to be a public process, appears in no government, department or commission material.

The Independent Planning Commission deserves credit for not only recording all meetings between the commission and stakeholders in major NSW developments, including proponents, government representatives and community and environment groups, but making transcripts available on its website very quickly.

It adds much-needed transparency in an area - planning in NSW - which has been rightly criticised for behind-closed-doors decisions foisted on an angry public, and where governments have paid lip service to the notion of public consultation.

Issue: 39,370.