PROMINENT geologist and climate change sceptic Ian Plimer has told a Sydney corruption inquiry he thought a training mine idea mooted for the NSW Hunter Valley was "madness".
Professor Plimer told the Independent Commission Against Corruption that he was introduced to the training mine idea in 2007, when he met with then-state mining minister Ian Macdonald, ex-CFMEU boss John Maitland and two representatives of the University of Newcastle.
The commission is investigating a coal exploration licence granted by Mr Macdonald the following year to a group of entrepreneurs, including Mr Maitland, for a training mine at Doyles Creek.
Prof Plimer on Thursday gave evidence that he had been head of the University of Newcastle geology department until 1991, and was invited to the 2007 meeting to discuss a possible role for the university in helping industry address skills shortages in NSW.
He said Mr Maitland gave him a brief outline of a training mine at Doyles Creek.
"He did raise the possibility of the university being associated with or driving the training mine," Prof Plimer said.
"I was quite appalled really."
He said he expressed to Mr Maitland and others at the meeting that students were great candidates to become "organ donors or (win) Darwin Awards", and that sending undergraduates into an underground training mine presented too great a safety risk and was not within a university's remit.
"Did anyone respond to you?" counsel assisting, Peter Braham, SC, asked on Thursday.
"No, but I don't think people are really all that surprised by my outbursts," the witness responded with a smile.
The commission is now hearing evidence from former CFMEU official Peter Murray.
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