COMMENT (with a twist!) It was a night for the bold and the beautiful, the bad and the ugly, with security fit for the super stars last Thursday night in Brisbane when coal miners struck back at the advancing net zero warriors with an industry event for the ages to launch its very own Fightback – Coal Australia.
The Fifth Estate wasn’t invited, but here’s what Values to Value columnist Murray Hogarth dreamed up would have been the perfect QandA to mark the occasion.
9 AUGUST, 2024: Industry Queensland was thrilled: “Coal Australia made its opening pitch to regain lost ground in the hearts and minds of Australians last night in front of a partisan crowd in Brisbane’s Tattersalls Club. The LNP was represented in force with at least eight serving MLAs and Senator Susan McDonald present. The campaign is funded by mining companies in Queensland.”
Tell us about the new mining dating platform, Coal Australia
Well, coal is special but no-one understands them anymore. Like lonely hearts looking for love in an uncaring world. We’re aiming to fix that.
Don’t you mean “it”? Aren’t personal pronouns way too woke for old fossils?
We’re moving with the times. Finding our groove. Coal Australia is all about the future and good times to come, not just digging up the carboniferous and Permian past. Our greed, sorry, creed, is representing the people and companies committed to building a secure future for Australian coal. We’re taking a stand.
But didn’t you already have a choice of dating platforms where coal was welcome and well served?
Sure, there’s the Minerals Council of Australia, the Queensland Resources Council and the NSW Minerals Council, not to mention the Liberal, National and Labor parties. Our members will still have reciprocal rights with them, of course. But as we’ve said, coal is special, and has some very particular preferences.
Such as?
We have very sensitive economic zones. We need to “planetise” our negative impacts and privatise our positive ones. Net profits over net zero anything.
Tell us more
It’s not fair we have to pay royalties to extract our deposits. Open-cut isn’t to everyone’s taste – too brutal, intrusive some say – but they also think underground is too penetrative – we love it.
We will defend our freedom to emit and the manner and timing of our choosing. This doesn’t sit well with the crazy consent demands of the carbon-reduction crowd.
The rules and restrictions on our scope1-3 emissions are becoming oppressive in the extreme. We saw off that pesky carbon price nonsense a decade ago. But now there’s a whole bunch of wacky stuff, like C-word BAMs, which apparently stands for carbon border adjustment mechanisms. Talk about invasion of an industry’s right to might.
Coal Australia seems to dance around the global imperative to stop greenhouse gas pollution and avert a climate crisis – is that right?
Next question.
Seriously, though, surely you can see that you can’t keep on digging great big holes and polluting the atmosphere by burning coal in huge power stations, or shipping it off around the world to make steel and generate electricity?
With respect, we’ve already answered your question. Coal is special.
But just proclaiming your “special” isn’t a get out of jail free card, is it?
That’s exactly how things have worked for many decades. It’s what we’re used to, and we just need to remind everyone of the fact that we’re special.
Park that for a moment then. In the lead-up to the Coal Australia launch you were reported as claiming that coal is a victim of neglect, even abuse. Is that right?
You must be talking about that story in The Courier Mail in Queensland last week. Our inaugural chair Nick Jorss was quoted as saying: “The coal industry has frankly been beaten around the head with a blunt stick.”
That sounds painful. How do you recover from that? Have you sued? Is there a #Coal Me Too movement emerging?
Nick made it clear we are being abused and unfairly so. The industry is mobilising. We’re coming together and, at the very least, standing up for ourselves and pointing out how we provide jobs, regional prosperity and the value we pump into the Australian economy.
So your introduction line is basically “poor bugger me”
Those are your words, and, might we say, they are offensive to our community. We’d say misunderstood and underappreciated. And beaten with a blunt stick.
That’s a bit rich isn’t it? Bloomberg recently ran a report under the headline “Old King Coal remains omnipotent and omnipresent”, saying that “the dirtiest fossil fuel still powers the world’ and proclaiming that “talk of its demise is greatly exaggerated”. Aren’t you still the big dog at the energy dance?
You can’t believe everything you read in the media. As former, and hopefully next US President Donald “Drill Baby Drill” Trump would say, “fake news!” That said, we can’t help but like the general thrust of that particular article, even if it was a bit narky.
Scanning those who’ve come out publicly on your platform thus far, it seems a bit blokey. Your chair, Bowen Coking Coal’s Nick Jorss, Whitehaven Coal’s Paul Flynn, New Hope Group’s Rob Bishop and Kestrel Coal Resources’ Shane Hansen. Do they reflect your target market?
Coal is absolutely an equal and every opportunity polluter, sorry partner. Watch this space.
What about the rival platforms? The renewable twins solar and wind come with batteries these days. Can you compete in the new energy marketplace?
Good one, that’s funny. The sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow, and batteries go flat. Coal keeps partying all night long, and all day too.
But isn’t that a key part of the problem for coal? It’s now less about 24/7/365 endurance and more about flexibility and fast response for when renewables aren’t up for it. If fossil fuels still have a role, that sounds more like gas doesn’t it?
Best of luck to them with that. An invisible gas versus hard black rock? Not in our combustion world!
Now there’s all this talk about nuclear energy lining up to eat coal’s electricity generation lunch as well?
Come in spinner. Here’s a dirty little secret you may have missed. Even if Australia started on it tomorrow, nuclear energy will take decades to legalise, legislate, regulate, design, build and commission. It’s burn baby burn! Of course we love nuclear!
You must be delighted with the great coverage you’ve been getting in the Murdoch media, especially The Courier Mail?
Yeah, nah. To be totally frank, we think you’ll find you get what you pay for in this world.
We couldn’t help but note that you didn’t advertise the venue ahead of your launch event, other than “Brisbane CBD”, and it was strictly ticketed and invitation-only. Were you concerned about gate-crashers?
Our people want to mix with their own kind. There’s nothing quite like coal baron meets coal baron in a discreet and convivial environment, with a few XXXXs and Bundys to loosen things up.
And we want any media mates and politicians who come along to feel they are among friends, especially if they come bearing policy gifts and promises of more good coverage to come. There’s an election coming up in Queensland this October, and a national one by May next year. We’re not muppets, we know this is the time to party with the parties. Besides, those Greenpeace types are such mood-killers.
Who can join your platform?
Everyone’s welcome. Just pay the fees and pass the very basic eligibility requirements.
What are those?
You just have to mine, transport, burn, trade or invest in vast amounts of coal. Other than that, we’re very inclusive.
Let’s wrap up with a quick pop quiz:
Favourite billionaire? Gina Rinehart
Worst billionaire? Dead-heat Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest
Top PR diversion tactic? Carbon capture and storage (CCS)
Best new spin talent? Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)
Funniest joke? Solar, Wind and Battery walk into a bar in Coal Country. Punchtime.