The early closure of coal-fired power stations is expected to prevent deaths, reduce asthma attacks, and save hundreds of millions of dollars in health costs.
The coroner found the partner of elderly disabled grandmother Janice Garrett deliberately lit the Raymond Terrace house fire and fuelled it with gas bottles and fuel tins.
Their homes were covered in asbestos after a warehouse fire in Newcastle last week and now residents are doing the clean-up themselves in the absence of advice from authorities.
Environmentalists have long suspected that heavy metals were leaching from power station coal ash dams into the ecosystem. Now they say they have the evidence to prove it.