Coal bosses accused of toying with jobs

Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday 23/9/2009 Page: 8

THE mining union says the coal industry is being "blatantly dishonest" and toying with workers' jobs on the coalfields as it tries to extract more compensation under the Federal Government's emissions trading scheme. The Minerals Council of Australia yesterday demanded a huge increase in government funding to compensate it for the costs it will incur by having to account for its carbon emissions. It said draft guidelines from the European Commission showed that Australian mining companies would be at a disadvantage compared with Europe's heavy emitters, and predicted enormous job losses.

The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union pointed out that a series of studies commissioned by the Minerals Council of Australia still showed strong industry growth and rising employment. "The blatant scare campaign they're mounting has miners sitting around the dinner table worrying if they will have a job," said the union's national president, Tony Maher. "These workers are being used as pawns in a game that is not about jobs but about trying to increase mining company profits."

Mr Maher said that, on the Mineral Council's figures, "absolutely stellar growth would simply be replaced by extremely strong growth" in the coal industry under an emissions trading scheme. No current jobs would be lost but future growth would be scaled back. The union believes the Government should subsidise only coal mines with high gas leakage. These include several mines in the Hunter and Illawarra. The council said its research was backed by federal Treasury modelling, which shows that' under one scenario "the fossil fuel mining sector declines considerably".

"It is time the CFMEU stood up for its thousands of members in the minerals sector instead of acting like a political sycophant," the council's chief executive, Mitch Hooke, said. "There is no room for politically inspired complacency about the minerals sector's prospects." The council said it supported a "well-designed" emissions trading scheme but believed the current proposal fails that test. "It will cost jobs, wages and growth, but will fail to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions," Mr Hooke said. The Federal Government plans to put legislation before the Senate in November to create a scheme designed to cut greenhouse gas output by between 5 and 25% of its 2000 level over the next decade.