New peak group spruiks king coal as jobs, wealth creator

Coal is fighting back, with industry heavyweights forming a new peak body this week to garner grassroots support for the beleaguered sector.

Coal is one of the country’s biggest export earners.

Coal is fighting back, with industry heavyweights forming a new peak body this week to garner grassroots support for the beleaguered sector.

Bowen Coking Coal executive chairman Nick Jorss, Woodside Energy director Ian Macfarlane and National Party Senator Susan McDonald were at the launch in Brisbane on Thursday night of Coal Australia, which will promote the fuel as one of the country’s biggest export earners and a viable source of efficient energy well into the future. The new body already includes Whitehaven Coal and New Hope Group as foundation members.

”We’re looking to restore our social licence and that’s driven by grassroots communities,” Jorss told the gathering at Brisbane Tattersall’s Club.

“It’s not CEOs, it’s our employees, it’s our communities - everybody from the bakery to the bar. We want to create pride in our local communities and encourage activism.” Coal Australia is planning an advertising campaign, including billboards, as part of an effort to elevate that value and importance of coal to Australia.

Rugby league stars Darren Lockyer and Sam Thaiday have been enlisted to promote coal mining jobs across Queensland. “We’ve got around 50,000 people supporting us so far and that’s a weapon,” Jorss said. “We can utilise that to direct it towards banks or other people that are out to destroy our industry.”

: Bowen Coking Coal executive chairman Nick Jorss.

Jorss said polling by the new body showed 89 per cent of people believe coal mining is important to them and their community while “82 per cent said they’re proud their community contributes to Australia’s economy through coal mining.”

About 75 per cent support attracting greater investment to grow Queensland’s coal industry.” Macfarlane, a former chief executive of the Queensland Resources Council, said the Queensland government’s decision to hike coal royalties without consultation two years ago was still causing ructions with our major trading partners.

“We’ve got to rebuild our reputation in places like Japan. This afternoon I met with a rep from a London-based investment house, a big London-based investment house. He hadn’t been back to this side of the world for a couple of years and he said, I’ve been up in Japan, they are still white hot about what happened with royalties. And it’s not just the companies that are directly affected, it’s all the way through the (Japanese) government. They now see Queensland as not a place to trust to invest in. That’s got to be fixed.”

Bridgend Capital Advisory managing director Nick Rees said coal exports total about $100bn each year, more than agricultural, beef, international education and wheat combined. “People talk about turning off the tap, weaning ourselves off the coal industry and finding other jobs,” said Rees. “What that means is we need to find another tourism industry, another inbound education industry, another wheat industry, another beef industry. That’s no mean feat.”

Ian Macfarlane says manufacturing in decline, making mining more vital.

Macfarlane, a former federal manufacturing and resources minister, said the mining sector was becoming even more important for Australia. “Manufacturing sector has shrunk from 25 per cent of the economy to about 8 per cent and is not turning around,” he said. “Yes, we make some very, very good stuff here, but when you look at what other nations are doing and where we’re starting from, the industry that we are good that is the resources sector. We do it better, safer, with less environmental impact than any other industry and any other country. We should be proud of it, and Australians should stop saying, ‘oh, we’ll just dig it up and send it out. We want to do other stuff.’ It’s this stuff that’s actually keeping them in their jobs.”