20/04/2021

(AU The Australian) Labor Drops Hostility To Coal

The Australian - 

Madeleine King says Labor is ‘absolutely not supportive one bit’ of a push by Malcolm Turnbull for a moratorium on new coalmines. Picture: Sean Davey

Opposition resources spokeswoman Madeleine King has said Labor will not stand in the way of new mines and believes Australia will export coal beyond 2050, as the party moves to recast itself as a middle-ground option in the climate change wars.

Ms King, a West Australian MP who took over the resources portfolio in January, said she is up for the challenge of taking on the perception in Western Australia and Queensland that federal Labor is not supportive of the resources industry.

When asked whether Labor supported the coal sector, Ms King said “you bet it does,” and stressed her belief that Australia would continue to export the ­resource past 2050.

“It is a major export. It is in our top three in any given time at the moment,” Ms King told The Australian.

“For so long as international markets want to buy Australian coal, which is high quality, then they will be able to.”

Ms King said Labor was “absolutely not supportive one bit” of a push by Malcolm Turnbull for a moratorium on new coalmines, while adding there would also be “huge opportunities” for mining companies as the growth of low-emissions technologies increased demand for lithium, copper and nickel.

She called for a more “mat­ure” discussion on climate change from both sides of the debate in which green activists recognised that coal and gas would be part of the nation’s economy for many years to come.

“It is about having a more ­mature conversation and explaining exactly what this will involve,” she said.

“We all want a renewable ­energy future but it will not, cannot, happen overnight.

“We need to explain that … (and) junk these climate wars.

“Some arguments have been turned into a sort of a zero-sum game and it all has to be action immediately.

“And action is urgent. I think that it’s right to say we must act, but you cannot shut down ­people’s lives either and shut down industries overnight. And we shouldn’t want to do it.”

Ms King, who supports ­Anthony Albanese’s commitment of net-zero emissions by 2050, said she believed Australia would be exporting both thermal and metallurgical coal in the second half of the century.

“I think we go beyond the ­middle of the century, I really do,” Ms King said.

“I aspire to net-zero emissions by 2050 but not every country is going to make it.”

Leader of the Opposition Anthony Albanese and Shadow Resources Minister Madeleine King.

She said the coal exports were “still growing” and any declines in the sector were a “fair way off”.

“The demand will remain for some time and we will continue to supply that demand,” Ms King said. “As an export trading nation, we are subject to the vagaries of the international market that decides when that decline happens.

“I think (reduction in coal demand) is a fair way off yet. And I think it will be a slow gradual decline in demand as each (nation) that is committed to net-zero emissions figures out how it is going to make its energy mix work to get to that point.”

Ms King’s vocal support of the resources sector comes as the ­Opposition Leader moves to recast Labor as a centre-ground ­option that will take strong action on ­climate change but also support traditional industries.

At the ALP’s national conference last month, Labor made commitments to give tax breaks to electric cars but also inserted supportive references to the coal and gas sectors in its policy platform.

Former resources spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon has led the charge for the party to be more forthright in its support of the sector after the Adani and climate change ­issues savaged Bill Shorten’s support at the last election in Queensland, the NSW Hunter Valley and Western Australia.

While Labor has been successful at a state level in WA and Queensland in the past decade, its primary vote in the resource states has barely lifted above 30 per cent since Julia Gillard contested the 2010 election.

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