STATEMENTS BY SENATORS – Coal mining

A few years ago, this place was dominated by the hot topic of the proposed Adani Carmichael mine. It was on everyone’s lips. People were gluing themselves to the streets in protest against it. Eventually people power won, and the mine got going. It’s now producing 10 million tonnes of coal a year and employing over 1,500 Australians there, very successfully. Why I refer to that, though, is to keep in mind those 10 million tonnes of coal a year. Just a few weeks ago, the gospel of global energy, the statistical review of energy, came out. It comes out every year and tells everybody what
different types of energy different countries around the world are using. It showed some shocking statistics. In just two years, the equivalent of 100 Adani coalmines have opened up in our region. In Indonesia they’ve opened up the equivalent of 15 Adani mines, with an over-150-million-tonne increase in their coal production in just two years. In India, there’s been just shy of 200 million tonnes of extra coal production in just two years; that’s the equivalent of 20 Adani mines there in India. And of course the big daddy of them all, China, has increased its coal production by a stunning 548 million tonnes in just two years. That’s around 55 Adanis up there in China. And where are all the protests? Where are the people gluing themselves to the gates of the Chinese embassy?
Where are the calls for people to boycott going to Bali, to give up those holidays? Nothing—despite the fact that mines 100 times the size of this relatively small little mine in Central Queensland have opened up in the two years since. That’s two years since, may I add, the world apparently signed up to net zero emissions at Glasgow. Indonesia, India and China all signed that document; they all said they were going to do that. And what have they done in the two years since? They’ve focused on cheap, reliable energy that is guaranteeing their jobs.