A speech given on the 21st November to a group in Newcastle
Coal was first mined in Newcastle in 1799! That’s over 200 years! If a generation is 25 years then that’s 8 generations of coalminers! How do we convince a 4th or 5th generation coalminer that he is better off to give up his $120K job? It’ll never happen. Indirect businesses relying on coal mining involves whole towns. Why would they want to see the end of coal?
I do not believe you can convince the majority of people in the Hunter area that coal is bad. You can throw all the climate change and CO2 data at them all you like, they will not care if they think they will earn less or their business will suffer.
One potential way we can do this is if we can change tact. The reality of this is that Sydneysiders can have placards until the cows come home; there is strong support for coal in the Hunter, winning over just some of those people means talking to them through the hip pocket.
We need to become more diverse in our platform. We are Green, we are seen as “Green” with all those stereotypes and images that go with the tag.
A tree doesn’t have one branch, it has many. If we are to persuade people then we need to start using other branches of the tree, the branch that talks eloquently on economics, the branch that speaks edifyingly on health. We need to use the whole tree not just the same tired old branch. That’s why you need diversity. Not just someone from a non-urban area singing the same tune. But someone with the diverse background that can speak many languages like health, manufacturing, transport.
If we are to connect with the people in the Hunter then we need to address the fundamental issue of putting food on the table and money in the bank. We need to start talking about job guarantees, employment with minimum wages that balance business ability to turn a profit with that of sustaining staff. We need to start telling the people of the Hunter not that coal is bad but that they don’t need coal because you can have jobs without coal. In the process create a community that is the envy of the country with beautiful rolling hills producing local food where under utilisation of the workforce is just a memory.
Our goal should be to capture people’s desire for a safe and prosperous future – saying to people “no more coal” will not cut it in the wider community because for most their relationship with coal is as tenuous as turning on a light.
I believe we need to start talking more and more about the sort of workd we want to live in with an argument framed around the economy and prosperity – like it or lump it – this is the world we live in. Selling our thoughts and our sustainable way of life requires an approach based on the symptoms of climate change not an argument based on the causes. For example, a symptom of climate change is that we have more frequent and prolonged droughts leading to lower crop yields and ultimately higher food prices….no-one wants higher food prices.
Doctors will often treat a symptom before tackling the cause, we should try this approach.