10 November
2006 - Kim Beazley must today sever ties with
anti-coal lobby group ’GetUp’ – a radical anti-fossil
fuel pressure group, linked closely to Labor.
Mr Beazley also needs to come
clean about the ALP’s stance on the Australian
coal industry following revelations today that
two senior ALP figures, Bill Shorten and Victorian
ALP candidate Evan Thornley, are board members
of GetUp, a group which has called on Australians
to “kick the coal habit” and which supports the
shut down of Australia’s coal mining communities.
Today’s revelations come hot
on the heels of revelations that the Labor dominated
Newcastle City Council introduced measures that
would shut down the Hunter Valley coal industry
by passing motions which:
“establish a cap on coal exports”
“initiate a moratorium on new coal mines”
“establish a levy on the coal industry”
“What does Beazley’s Labor stand
for?”
On one hand Labor frontbencher,
and Member for Hunter, Joel Fitzgibbon has said
in relation to the Newcastle City vote, that “Extreme
environmentalists are launching a jihad against
the industry in an attempt to close it down”*
while Mr Shorten and Mr Thornley sit on the board
of GetUp which wants to send the coal industry
packing.
The 5,000 families in the Hunter
region whose livelihoods depend on the local coal
industry must be wondering about their future
were Labor to come to power.
But this is not the first time
Beazley’s Labor has taken a doctrinaire approach
to the Hunter Valley coal industry. In May this
year Federal Labor Member for Charlton Kelly Hoare
advocated for the end of coal mining in the Hunter
Valley. In a letter to me she wrote:
“The Hunter is one of the world’s
carbon capitals and home to a rapacious mining
industry”, and that the proposed “Anvil Hill [coal
mine] is a key part of the Hunter Valley Coal
export expansion which needs to be stopped if
the world is to avoid climate change.”
Labor is in thrall to the radical
deep greens—who are driving a strong anti-coal
agenda under the guise of environmental stewardship—and
is hopelessly divided on the future of Australia’s
coal industry and climate change strategy.
* AFR Friday 10-11-06, Pg 9
Rob Broadfield
Kim Beazley's Labor votes against
Hunter Valley coal
9 November 2006 - The Australian
Labor Party has abandoned Hunter Valley and Newcastle
working families in a misguided approach on climate
change.
Last night the Labor dominated
Newcastle City Council voted against coal mining
in the Hunter Valley in what can only be described
as a bizarre example of extremism gone mad.
The council moved seven motions,
all aimed at sending the Newcastle coal industry
packing. The motions resolved to:
“establish a cap on coal exports
from Newcastle at existing levels”.
“initiate a moratorium on new coal mines”
“establish a levy on the coal industry”
Newcastle and its nearby towns
and communities have been built on coal. More
than 5,000 families in Newcastle and the Hunter
rely on coal mining for jobs and yet in one stroke
the Newcastle City Council would shut Newcastle
down and dispatch these people to the dustbin
of history.
But this is not the first time
Beazley’s Labor has taken a doctrinaire approach
to the Hunter Valley coal industry. In May this
year Federal Labor Member for Charlton Kelly Hoare
wrote to me advocating the end of coal mining
in the Hunter Valley. She wrote:
“The Hunter is one of the world’s
carbon capitals and home to a rapacious mining
industry”, and that the proposed “Anvil Hill [coal
mine] is a key part of the Hunter Valley Coal
export expansion which needs to be stopped if
the world is to avoid climate change.”
It is truly ironic that the
Labor councilors of the Newcastle Council would
deliver this damnation of coal the same week that
the International Energy Agency announced that—not
withstanding great gains in renewable technologies
such as solar—fossil fuels will continue to account
for a large proportion of the world's energy needs
in fifty years time.
As anyone who is serious about
climate change knows, ‘clean coal’ not ‘no coal’
is one of the key planks in the global battle
against greenhouse.
This attack by Newcastle Council
is led by the left of the Labor Party in thrall
with its bed fellows in the extreme green movement.
The Howard Government recognises
the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally
and understands that renewables and nuclear will
also play their part. That is why the Howard Government
is rolling out $500 million in low emission technologies,
which will leverage more than $1 billion from
the private sector to prove up the technologies
which will give us the breakthroughs we need.
Until the Australian Labor Party
recognises that solving climate change will not
be fixed by simply shutting down the economies
of power-house regions such as the Hunter Valley,
the Gippsland region of Victoria, the Bowen Basin
of Queensland and the Collie region of WA, Kim
Anthony Albanese and Peter Garrett cannot be taken
seriously on this vital issue.
Rob Broadfield
