‘Miners don’t want $40k a year renewables jobs’: Labor MP

Federal MP lets rip with passionate defence of coal at ALP conference, says workers ‘hate’ being told to transition to renewables.

Labor MP Meryl Swanson, second from left, says mine workers in her electorate ‘hate’ being told to transition to renewables jobs.

Labor MP Meryl Swanson has delivered strident defence of the coal sector, declaring miners did not want to leave their jobs to “screw solar panels on roofs for $40,000 a year”.

The federal MP for the coal electorate of Paterson hit out at “bullshit” claims the coal sector only employed 3800 in her region in the NSW Hunter Valley and declared workers “hate” being told they need to transition into the renewables industry.

Declaring “we have built our nation off the back of coal”, Ms Swanson said the industry should be treated with respect and the resource should never be labelled “dirty”.

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Labor’s ambivalence of coal and the Adani project have been blamed for Bill Shorten’s poor results in regional Queensland and the Hunter Valley.

“I’ve got coal miners who were once respected members of the community, earning $100,000 a year, some of them with bonuses when times are good getting up to $120,000,” Ms Swanson told a conference in Sydney organised by the Chifley Research Centre.

“They don’t want to screw solar panels on roofs for $40,000 a year. They don’t and I don’t blame them.

“So when we say to them ‘we are going to transition you out and we are going to bring in renewables’. They hate that. And well they should.

“So what used to become a worthwhile well-paid job has somehow become dirty and I resent people who refer to coal as dirty. We have built a nation off the back of coal. It deserves our respect.

“The industry deserves to be treated respectfully and we should be turning our attention and our minds to how we look at the generation of energy and the building up of our communities off the back of that.”

Meryl Swanson.

She said there was an “intergenerational skills base” that has resulted from mining in the Hunter Valley through “spin-off industries” such as engineering.

“There is lots and lots of research going into mining, there is lots of other high level manufacturing jobs that have been able to be born out of that heavy industry. Somewhere along the road we forgot that,” Ms Swanson said.

Anthony Albanese and ALP president Wayne Swan have made speeches on Saturday morning at the “ideas” event held by a Labor think tank, where they both condemned Facebook for it’s role in spreading fake information.

Mr Swan said Labor would next year bring together a “coalition of centre-left” parties and attempt to organise a global response to the social media behemoths.

He said social media companies needed to be recognised as publishers and there should be transparency around the data they accumulate.

“Nothing – including breaking up the social media platforms where the concentration their market power is damaging society – should be off the table,” Mr Swan said.

There will also be speeches at the two-day event from opposition Treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers, education spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek and ACTU secretary Sally McManus.

Ms Swanson’s defence of the coal sector came in a “Labor visions for regional Australia” session chaired by Queensland Labor senator Anthony Chisholm, with other panellist

s being Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill, Broken Hill Mayor Darriea Turley and journalist Gabrielle Chan.

Senator Chisholm said the election result in regional Queensland was “dire”, pointing to the deterioration of the party’s vote in the traditionally left-wing town of Bowen in the electorate of Dawson.

“Bowen is the only place is the only place in the country that has elected a communist member of parliament and they did it twice in the 1940s,” Senator Chisholm said.

“We won the seat of Dawson in 2007 and our primary vote in Bowen was 57 per cent.

“At the election just gone, the Labor primary vote in Bowen was 20 per cent. If the Adani coal mine was to go ahead the coal would be exported from Bowen.”

He said it was the first time since 1942 that Labor had failed to elect two senators from Queensland.

“We hold no federal seat past Sandgate, which is about 25 minutes from the Brisbane GPO.”