Illustration: David Rowe
With the recent declaration by federal Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg that there's a "strong moral case" for new coal exports, the Australian government's official line on the giant Adani coal mining project has lapsed into farce.
Just days after Environment Minister Greg Hunt approved Australia's largest coal mine, assuring the community that the project would be required to meet the highest environmental standards, Frydenberg appears to be suggesting that coal – one of the major sources of air pollution and associated mortality across India and China – will actually deliver health benefits to the developing world.
This disturbing enthusiasm for recasting flagship Coalition policies in benevolent terms – retrospectively anointing unscrupulous policy approaches with virtuous justifications – is hardly new.
Frydenberg's audacity in citing the same WHO report that specifically points to coal as part of the problem is simply breathtaking, and it suggests the political script hasn't altered much despite the change in leadership. But where Tony Abbott's "coal is good for humanity" rhetoric relied on glaringly prejudicial assumptions about solutions to energy poverty – and conveniently overlooked the impact of unchecked global climate change on the Third World – the remarks of our Resources Minister depart from reality altogether.
Abbot Point in Queensland, a proposed terminal for coal produced at Adani's Carmichael mine.
There's no doubt energy poverty is an issue for vast swaths of humanity, or that use of traditional indoor stoves and associated poor air quality are diabolical problems. The research, however, is unequivocal about the solutions, which include – let's be clear – less coal for residential and commercial use, and less coal for electricity generation.
No matter how far-fetched the logic, this disturbing enthusiasm for recasting flagship Coalition policies in benevolent terms – retrospectively anointing unscrupulous policy approaches with virtuous justifications – is hardly new. Encouraged by a progression of immigration ministers who have defended draconian, certainly inhumane – possibly illegal – measures by reference to a humanitarian agenda, perhaps the temptation to apply the same hackneyed rebranding to the resources sector is simply too great.
But it just won't wash. And nor will Hunt's limp reassurances offered after his approval of the Adani project – and in the same week, astoundingly, as he declared Australians "should be proud" of the government's climate change efforts. Really? The mind boggles.
If you can suspend disbelief for long enough to buy the deranged argument that burning more coal might actually reduce pollution-related mortality in the developing world, one of the many imponderables is why our resources agenda should be informed by concern for communities grappling with energy poverty but not those confronted with devastating climate-related crop failures or the threat of sea-level rise?
As one of the world's largest exporters of thermal coal, Australia's lack of engagement on the latter issue is entirely unsurprising. Aside from a source of gallows humour at the expense of our Pacific island neighbours, the matter appears to have barely registered in the consciousness of the government.
Indeed, Australia already has a track record of dismissing applications from climate refugees, so it's not a stretch to imagine our Immigration Minister extending the same compassion to those escaping climate devastation as he now reserves for those fleeing violence and persecution – a dismal intersection of Australia's current trade and immigration agendas, both progressed – so we're told – with the greater good of humanity in mind.
So apparently untroubled is the Turnbull government about stoking the climate change behemoth that you could be mistaken for thinking we had nothing at stake ourselves. But even if we avert our gaze from those hardest hit by global warming – or, indeed, take anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions out of the equation altogether – can the impacts of this gargantuan project really be managed?
Hunt has been at pains to emphasise the 36 stringent conditions applied to the Adani project under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, complemented by monitoring and enforcement activities. But a recent report by the Commonwealth Auditor-General found the Environment Department adopted "a generally passive approach" to monitoring compliance, and had insufficient information to determine whether conditions were met. Even more alarming is the fact that, as of March 2014, monitoring activities for the 600-plus controlled actions – with more than 8000 conditions – were undertaken by just 24 staff; a number that may well approximate the size of Adani's legal and project approvals team alone.
In a rare moment of candour Hunt has conceded that his consideration of matters under the act is relatively circumscribed and, in relation to climate change at least, he may well be right after the former government dismissed independent advice in 2009 to have a greenhouse trigger inserted in the legislation. This seems less like an assurance, though, than an admission of failure.
But while we're calling a spade a spade, maybe it's time to finally separate fact from fiction when it comes to the reasons behind new coal development. Because it's not about jobs, which, it turns out, were vastly overstated by Adani; there's no economically rational argument for boosting coal supply – with 52 new mines and expansions in the pipeline – just as our major trading partners announce plans to cease thermal coal imports; and we can be absolutely certain it has nothing whatsoever to do with addressing the humanitarian concerns of the developing world.
Sarah Gill has worked as a writer and a policy analyst. She is undertaking postgraduate legal studies at the University of Western Australia.
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