Vikki Campion: ‘Indisputable evidence’ Chinese solar battery manufacturer uses slave labour
There is ‘indisputable evidence’ Chinese company CATL, which has manufactured hundreds of EV bus batteries for NSW, uses slave labour in making its components.
Opinion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
When the luxury of sugar in British tea became commonplace, it came off the backs of the enslaved in the Americas. Today, people say they would refuse to tolerate any such evil, but the reality is we still do. The sugar in the cup is now the battery in the bus and the panel on the farm.
It turns out our government procurement teams and intermittent power developers are not so different from hoity-toity classes delicately tonging cubes of sugar into Royal Doulton while plantation slaves suffered in the Caribbean.
During a heated interrogation in NSW parliament this week, Shooters MLC Mark Banasiak and Liberal MLC Damien Tudehope exposed a system with a gaping loophole.
Companies operating in communist China, which considers the Uyghur cultural identity a mental illness, are asked to self-disclose any enslavement of a race they barely regard as human.
Subject to ethnic cleansing, forced marriage, forced abortion and a stolen generation banned from speaking their language, there is far and wide evidence of Uyghurs being forced to “volunteer” in government programs in mines and factories.
In parliament, the NSW transport minister was forced to defend buying hundreds of EV bus batteries from Chinese battery manufacturer and technology company CATL.
According to a US congressional investigation, there is “indisputable evidence” that CATL uses slave labour in making its components.
But never mind, Transport Minister John Graham told estimates he had “significant assurances in the deed” that “require companies to be upfront” about using slave labour to make electric bus batteries.
When you self-regulate, money can be made in self-approval, especially from climate zealots on the NSW public purse.
CATL in Xinjiang assures us we have nothing to worry about, pointing to its “Due Diligence Management Policy for Responsible Mineral Resources Supply Chain”, which distances itself from “any forms of forced or compulsory labour”.
And how many NSW bureaucrats are in Xinjiang on quality assurance?
None. Neither are they federally; in fact, no one is allowed to go to Xinjiang without approval.
Most of our EV batteries are made in the same province, with the sugar on top being Australian taxpayers spending $560m a year in tax breaks to put our wealthy into luxury electric cars.
Uyghur migrant Ramila Chanisheff of the Australian Uyghur and Tangritagh Women’s Association has a very good idea of how these so-called quality assurance schemes work in a region that mines the essential minerals required for the “transition”. She begged for the bus contracts to be ripped up, and recently appealed to a NSW Independent Planning Commission hearing of a massive solar factory at Birrawa: “Please, please, I urge that the solar panels that you are bringing in or that you are engaging with China will have the blood of my family, of every Uyghur.”
Disgracefully, the commission asked her no questions and instead approved the Birrawa Solar Factory with no disclosure about from where its solar panels were to be sourced.
Its Philippine developer, ACEN Australia, claims to use “tier one” suppliers, but is hardly forthcoming in disclosing specifics. With 13 major wind and solar factories in the pipeline, when ACEN discloses what will be sourced locally, it lists skills such as fencing and products such as personal protective equipment. What’s conveniently not on the locally made list? The solar panels themselves.
Two years ago, Mr Banasiak called out the Modern Slavery Register’s disclaimer that states: “The publication of modern slavery statements on this Register does not indicate compliance with the requirements of the Modern Slavery Act 2018.” You get a better warranty on a vacuum cleaner. A whole review and an Albanese government response later, that disclaimer remains today.
A Chinese company in a communist regime that shifts ethical responsibility to suppliers is not surprising, but it leaves a bitter taste when our taxpayer-funded net zero choir sings with a slave-made organ.
Especially in NSW, a state so morally uptight that it bans plastic straws yet happily procures batteries and solar panels from an area notorious for slave labour. Embellishing the virtue of your product by absconding quality control of the humanity behind it leaves a bitter taste, even at the swankiest of tea parties.
THE PARTY THAT CLAIMS IT IS NOT A PARTY SURE ACTS LIKE IT IS A PARTY
Shy and reclusive Kennedy MP Bob Katter has never been caught out on his own social media post congratulating himself for his insightful commentary.
Over his 30-year political career, many have struggled to decipher his press conferences but all would have to concur they are unique and should serve a lesson of what genuine independent thought looks like, as perplexing as living in the precinct of man-eating crocodiles may be.
However, away from the mangroves of Far North Queensland, the other so-called independents have conjured up an incredible trick, to think and talk the same. No doubt we can put this down to their shared life experience.
Mackellar’s very independent MP Dr Sophie Scamps complicated her independence last Friday when she went viral for her heartfelt comment on fellow Climate 200-funded independent Allegra Spender’s page criticising “grubby politics” and, in a remarkable turn, Scamp’s campaign account replied to her own comment with “spot on”.
Endorsing your own comment in a matter of moments would make even Bob blush. Such occurrences may be excused when a person, like hypothetically a social media guy who manages multiple candidate accounts at the same time, has a finger slip.
Where it’s not supposed to happen is when a candidate is genuinely independent, as we are assured is the case with Climate 200 acting as a third-party fundraiser and not a political party. Climate 200 MPs are still chucking in the cash to promote their very independent ways.
Bob, who doesn’t have to confirm his independence, has still spent $0 in total in advertising it online.
We’re told this week that the Climate 200-funded candidates are so independent they can even choose to support a Liberal government while they fund ads against it.
If it walks like a party and quacks like a party, it’s probably a party.
LIFTER
Liberal MLC Jacqui Munro for revealing the $267,000 bill to recruit a new NSW Art Gallery CEO, to which Arts Minister John Graham declared: “We’re not prepared to cut corners on a worldwide search for this incredible institution.” Everybody who can’t afford groceries must be stoked.
LEANER
The brains behind the environmental conference COP30 where they are pulling down Amazon rainforest to host a conference to save it.
More Coverage
Why Jimbo’s teeny tax cuts could leave us all the poorer
The economic assumptions underpinning the Budget look shaky at best in a world of persistent cost pressures and increasing uncertainty, warns leading economist Warren Hogan.
‘Totally not our fault’: What Jim Chalmers really meant
Totally lost in Jimnomics? Fortunately our fiscal whisperer Joe Hildebrand has translated what the Treasurer said in his Budget speech and what he really meant. See the video.