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Demonising fossil fuels is wrong: Labor

Opposition resources spokeswoman Madeleine King will criticise naive climate activists who seek to rapidly shut down industries.

Madeleine King will use a speech in Perth to say the gas industry is ‘part of the solution to taking action on climate change and seeking to reach net zero emissions by 2050’. Picture: Sean Davey.
Madeleine King will use a speech in Perth to say the gas industry is ‘part of the solution to taking action on climate change and seeking to reach net zero emissions by 2050’. Picture: Sean Davey.

Opposition resources spokeswoman Madeleine King will criticise naive climate activists who seek to rapidly shut down industries and “demonise all fossil fuels” and pledge Labor support for opening up new gas fields and carbon-capture technology.

Ms King will use a speech to a major oil and gas conference in Perth on Thursday to “debunk myths” that Labor does not support the resources industry, amid a debate within Anthony Albanese’s team about how to calibrate its climate change and energy policies.

The speech to the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association comes after Ms King in April said Labor would not stand in the way of new coal mines and believed Australia would export coal beyond 2050 as the party moves to recast itself as a middle-ground option in the climate change wars.

Ms King will tell the APPEA conference the gas industry is “part of the solution to taking action on climate change and seeking to reach net zero emissions by 2050”.

“I want to assure all of you today that Labor supports the Australian gas sector,” Ms King will tell the national conference of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association.

“And we support opening up new gas reserves, subject to independent scientific assessments and effective environmental regulation. For example, last month Labor agreed to support the Beetaloo Cooperative Drilling Program Instrument in the Northern Territory.”

Shadow cabinet’s decision, on the advice of Ms King, to support funding to help unlock the Beetaloo basin was contentious within Labor, with Left faction MPs Ged Kearney and Libby Coker speaking against the policy in a caucus meeting this month.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese, centre, and Madeleine King, right, at the Kwinana Nickel Refinery in Perth in March. Picture: AAP
Labor leader Anthony Albanese, centre, and Madeleine King, right, at the Kwinana Nickel Refinery in Perth in March. Picture: AAP

Ms King told the concerned MPs in the caucus meeting that hydraulic fracking had been used in WA since 1958, and the Beetaloo development would support jobs “from high-level geologists right through to the cooks and cleaners who end up working on the site”.

With Labor facing pressure on its climate change position from green activists in capital cities and the Nationals in the regions, Ms King will say that workers in the energy sector were sick of being caught between the “opposing forces in the toxic climate wars”.

“On one side of this often counter-productive debate are the activists who naively seek to shut down, or rapidly phase out, many of our extractive industries and to demonise all fossil fuels,” Ms King will say. “At the other extreme are the climate change deniers who have ensured that Australia has become an international outlier in the global drive to reduce carbon emissions.

“Both of these arguments are dangerous and wrong. Both pose a risk to the health of our resources sector and to the critical need to address climate change and therefore our economic prosperity, in coming decades.”

Ms King will say the global transition to net-zero emissions “presents a massive economic opportunity for Australia and its natural commodities, including natural gas”.

“I believe natural gas will continue to be a major industry in Australia for many, many years to come,” she will say. “It will play a major part in reducing Australia’s carbon emissions. And it will assist our regional neighbours on their own journey to decarbonisation, as they seek cleaner, non-nuclear burning fuels as part of their energy mix.”

While Labor has moved to be more vocal about its support of the resources industry, Joel Fitzgibbon is among MPs who believe that the actions of the Opposition Leader have not matched the rhetoric. Mr Fitzgibbon a former resources spokesman 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.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/demonising-fossil-fuels-is-wrong-labor/news-story/b41210956ac1c87e390dfbd2d43f8203