Down Tools: Australia’s Most Powerful Workers Union Rejects Unreliable Wind & Solar

Labor – aka the ‘Workers Party’ – remains determined to destroy whole industries and thousands of jobs with a 50% RET and a giant ‘carbon’ tax. Business and job destroying policies that helped it comfortably lose the ‘unloseable’ Federal election in May, and which its deluded front bench simply can’t bear to let go.

Australian industry has been a protected species since the Victorian gold rush in the 1850s, cosseted behind an insurmountable wall of tariffs and propped up with subsidies. As the tariffs and subsidies to industries – such as motor manufacturing, clothing and footwear – were slashed in the 1990s, hundreds of businesses and entire industries have disappeared.

Nowadays, mining, manufacturing and mineral processing are being treated by politicians as a class of mangy vermin – fit only for urgent eradication – with a raft of utterly insane energy policies which threaten thousands of small and large businesses, alike.

Thanks to Australia’s obsession with heavily subsidised and chaotically intermittent wind and solar, mining, mineral processing, manufacturing and agriculture already face the nightmare scenario of rocketing power prices and an unreliable, and unpredictable supply. Precisely the disastrous combination that destroyed South Australia’s manufacturing industry and which is all set to destroy what’s left of its mineral processing businesses, too. Nyrstar’s lead and zinc smelter at Port Pirie is on life support, unlikely to survive.

Then there’s the not so minor issue of having power on tap at all. On peak demand days, when wind and solar down tools – NSW is forced to chop power to big industrial users, such as the Tomago aluminium smelter, as well as dumping households from the grid. What’s euphemistically called ‘demand management’.

The power behind the ALP comes from labour unions and the power behind the unions come from employed members. Without members and their dues, the labour unions would be 90 pound political weaklings.

No doubt prompted by dwindling membership and the wholesale slaughter of the industries that once employed them by rocketing power prices and unreliable supply, the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) has put its members and their employment prospects ahead of renewable energy virtue signalling; and put the Labor party on notice.

Driving a wedge into the ALP – which suffers from confusion and policy paralysis at the best of times – the CFMEU is demanding High Efficiency Low Emissions coal-fired power plants (in the short-term) with a move to nuclear power plants (over the longer term).

The Union’s goal is pretty obvious: cheap and reliable power in abundance to support mining and manufacturing jobs of the kind that keep its members in well remunerated and lasting employment.

In a ham-fisted and bumbling display, Labor’s Deputy leader Richard Marles, managed to remind us all why the ALP managed to lose the unloseable Federal election last May.

Richard Marles in struggle for safe ground on coal-fired power
The Australian
Rosie Lewis
10 February 2020

Deputy Labor leader Richard Marles has failed to say whether he supports new coal-fired power plants or coalmines, as the Victorian CFMEU backed high-­efficiency, low-emission coal and nuclear energy over renewables.

The union also said the transitioning of coal-fired power station workers and their communities towards a modern nuclear power industry was realistically achievable, but a “‘just transition’ to ­renewables is not”.

Mr Marles struggled to clarify on Sunday whether Labor would allow a coal-fired power station to be built if ­industry funded the project, but suggested a future Labor government would not stand in the way if it met “normal environmental ­approvals”.

“A Labor government is not going to put a cent into subsidising coal-fired power. And that is the practical question as to whether or not it happens,” Mr Marles told the ABC’s Insiders program.

Mr Marles’ confusing messages on coal came as the Victorian branch of the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and ­Energy Union urged the state to embrace HELE coal and nuclear power to both deliver reliable ­energy and achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

In its submission to the Victorian parliament’s inquiry into nuclear prohibition, the union’s mining and energy division’s state secretary, Geoff Dyke, said HELE coal combined with carbon capture and storage was the “preferred option” but a transition to nuclear energy was also worth considering.

“A ‘just transition’ of coal-fired power station workers and their communities towards a modern nuclear industry is realistically achievable, whereas CFMEU Mining and Energy Vic believes a ‘just transition’ to renewables is not,” Mr Dyke said.

“More importantly, a ‘just transition’ to nuclear power could provide the essential social licence for this proven technology to overcome lingering public concerns surrounding its safe operation in local communities where they might be located if, locally, they were to replace existing coal ­generators.

“Australia certainly has the skilled people and stable government to run a first-class nuclear power industry.

“All that is needed is the green light.”

Mr Dyke warned Victoria should be powered by dispatchable energy supplemented by renewables “rather than just relying on renewables alone” to avoid major blackouts, unaffordable electricity and the shutdown of the state’s industry.

The call for a ­nuclear industry puts the CFMEU at odds with ­Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese, who has declared nuclear power does not stack up in Australia because it has “never overcome the dangers that we have seen played out around the world”.

New federal Resources Minister Keith Pitt, a staunch nuclear advocate, would not say whether transitioning coal workers to a ­nuclear industry had merit, but he ­acknowledged the jobs and skills required to run a coal or nuclear power station were the same.

“If you ignore the fuel source that provides the scheme, in a practical, pure engineering sense, the roles are exactly the same,” Mr Pitt said.

“If you’re in a technical trade in a power station and the power ­station is the same apart from the source of fuel, of course there are opportunities.”

Former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce, also a big supporter of nuclear energy, said coal workers could be transitioned into nuclear jobs but the jobs must be available right away.

“If it becomes a theoretical promise, people don’t trust us enough to ever accept one of those,” he said.

Scott Morrison has made it clear the government would not consider ­nuclear energy unless there was bipartisan support.

Labor’s equivocation on the Adani coalmine in Queensland and ­ambitious climate change policies were considered critical to its 2019 election loss, which led to a disastrous ­result in Queensland and big swings against the party in coalmining seats.

Mr Marles, who once said the collapse of the global thermal coal market was a “good thing”, ­acknowledged coalminers played a “very significant” economic role and the industry would continue “for decades to come”.

Greens leader Adam Bandt ­attempted to wedge Labor, saying it was refusing to join with the minor party and stop “coal-­huggers in the Liberals”.
The Australian