Patriots can’t hate nation’s top export, coal

Anti-Adani protesters outside the Sydney Mining Club on Thursday. Picture: Hollie Adams.

When Samuel Johnson said patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel, he was attacking not patriotism but the scoundrels who falsely use it to defend their cause.

Patriotism gets a bad rap in this postmodern world — where so-called elites dis Brits who voted for Brexit to defend their nation’s sovereignty, or where progressive forces don’t see the value of ­borders in Europe, North America or Australia.

But most of us are viscerally patriotic — we want the best for our country, we know that our ­futures and those of our loved ones are inextricably linked to our nation’s ability to endure and flourish. Besides, we love the place and its people.

When a so-called think tank calls itself The Australia Institute, we assume it is on our side. Surely if it was preoccupied with supranational agendas, globalist redistribution or a borderless world it would be called the The UN Institute, The Globalist Forum or Socialist Alliance.

Yet this very same Australia Institute has been conducting meetings in foreign embassies in Canberra, actively lobbying against investment in Australia. It has been advocating against ­foreign investment in this nation in a way that is designed to damage our national economic interests, reduce employment prospects for our citizens and deliver benefits to our trade competitors. (Bizarrely enough, given the institute’s claimed focus on equity and the environment, its interventions likely would also hinder the aspirations of poor communities on the subcontinent and lead to increased carbon dioxide emissions.)

The Australia Institute’s chief target is coal, which just happened to have been confirmed this week as the ­nation’s top export. We have overtaken Indonesia as the world’s largest coal exporter and the ­industry usually trails only iron ore as our most valuable export. Buoyant prices boosted coal ­exports above $66 billion last year — a record that tipped iron ore from the top spot.

The coal industry directly ­employs about 40,000 people in well-paid jobs sustaining families, communities and other businesses, primarily in Queensland and NSW. Coal-fired electricity generation still accounts for more than two-thirds of the nation’s power.

It is worth repeating this crucial fact: about 70 per cent of the nation’s electricity comes from coal. This is an industry that not only underpins our nation’s prosperity, filling state and federal government coffers with tens of billions of dollars of revenue, but also one that is absolutely central to every facet of our daily lives. Yet The Australia Institute is setting it up as public enemy No 1.

Although employment numbers in coalmining have declined by up to 20,000 over the past ­decade, The Australia Institute wants the job shrinkage to continue. One of its key criticisms of Adani’s proposed Carmichael coalmine in Queensland’s Galilee Basin is that it won’t generate as many jobs as the proponents suggest and that it won’t be commercially viable. After exhausting environmental objections over air, land, groundwater and ocean consequences — not to mention indigenous heritage ­options — these anti-capitalist obstructers are willing to use commercial arguments against capital investment.

These malleable and inventive objections to development are nothing new in the environmental movement — more than two decades ago I helped expose how green activism encouraged the concoction of “secret women’s business” to block the Hindmarsh Island bridge — but there was a ­recent development involving The Australia Institute that seems a bridge too far.

It came through Joe Kelly’s ­exclusive report in last week’s The Weekend Australian. “The Australia Institute left-wing think tank met officials at the Chinese ­embassy to urge them not to back a new clean-coal plant in Australia,” Kelly reported, “warning it would result in the same political and community hostility experienced by the Adani project.”

Think about that: an institute bearing our nation’s name ­actively lobbies foreign governments to dissuade investment in this nation, hoping to eliminate employment opportunities for our citizens, revenue for our governments and prosperity for our ­nation. And we wonder why there is a crisis of confidence in Western liberal democracies.

As Kelly reported, on top of the China embassy meeting last month, The Australia Institute has held talks with at least five other embassies and high commissions over the past six months. The institute’s executive director is Ben Oquist, a one-time chief of staff to former Greens leaders Bob Brown and Christine Milne.

He defends The Australia Institute’s activities as being in the national interest. “Being Canberra-based, it is not unusual for ­embassy staff to seek briefings from Australia Institute researchers on their economic and policy research in relation to projects ­involving their governments,” Oquist said in response to my queries. “Examples include Galilee Basin thermal coal development, the previous (South Australian) state government’s nuclear waste dump proposals and how Australia will implement the Paris Agreement.

“There is international interest in the ever-changing climate and energy policies in Australia, ­including the financial, economic and social risks of gas and coal ­investment and the growing role of cheaper, cleaner renewable electricity … Our research can add considerably to the understanding of risks, costs and benefits of the projects and policies.

“All of The Australia Institute’s research is focused on the nat­ional interest: making Australia a more just, equitable and sustainable place.”

This is a difficult argument to sustain, given that the only way an assault on coal could possibly benefit Australia would be if global carbon dioxide emissions were cut enough to reduce the expected ­effects of global warming. But global carbon emissions are increasing each year by about double our annual national emissions.

Besides, if Australia exported less coal, other countries with lower grade resources, such as ­Indonesia, would fill the gap, producing even more emissions. (This claim was made by Malcolm Turnbull in 2016 when he was prime minister — “arguably it would increase (emissions) ­because our coal, by and large, is cleaner than the coal in many other countries” — and even an ABC Fact Check endorsed it.)

Regardless, The Australia Institute is out to block the Adani mine and prevent the construction of new high-­efficiency, low-emissions, coal-fired power generation in Australia.

We have a national crisis in energy affordability and ­reliability, and The Australia Institute is subverting efforts to find solutions, preferring to pursue the same ideological crusade for renewable energy ­investment that created the mess.

To bolster the national electricity market, the government is now considering 10 submissions to provide extra dispatchable power that would be underwritten by a minimum price. At least one proposal involves high-efficiency, low-emissions coal generation and others focus on gas-fired plants and stored hydro.

Clearly taxpayers would gain most from whichever plant provides the greatest reliability and quantity of power closest to existing transmission infrastructure. But I have a feeling The Australia Institute might opt for stored hydro, come hell or high water (pardon the pun).

With these crucial policy and economic decisions playing out in an election year, many in the media/political class continue to proselytise for renewables. ABC’s Media Watch this week criticised Queensland and NSW media for positive stories about the possible benefits, including jobs, from coal-related investment.

We have a taxpayer-funded national broadcaster that routinely amplifies The Australia Institute’s efforts to sabotage investment in our natural resources yet mocks commercial media that can see a positive angle on enterprise and employment.

As if this were not bad enough, the NSW Land and Environment Court has now rejected a new Hunter Valley coalmine based on climate change imperatives.

The move, widely hailed by green groups, heralds a new level of global climate activism enforced through our courts.

Judge Brian Preston decided he need to reject the mine because in order “to meet generally agreed climate targets” we needed a “rapid and deep ­decrease” in emissions. The case against the mine was run by the Environmental Defenders Office NSW, which is funded by the state government. Taxpayers’ money used to deliberately attack our No 1 export. We have truly lost our way.