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Speers and Joyce are going back and forth on what his position is around Australia hitting net zero by 2050. On the one hand, Joyce appears to say that the world is moving on from coal. On the other hand, he says he wants coal jobs protected.
Speers:
I’m trying to establish what your position is here. As you say, the world is moving on. Coal - the world will stop using coal at some point, do you agree and how can you protect those jobs indefinitely?
Well, let’s say that that’s - let’s work that statement out. If it does, people will stop buying it off us and that’s the progression.
Shouldn’t be you helping the transition of the industry now and those jobs in those regions?
That’s part and process of anything As technology moves on, I’ve got no problems on that. But to make a statement, “oh, the world is moving on from coal today,” it is just not right. We have the highest prices and highest volumes in the sale of thermal coal and because they’ve completely botched it in theUK unfortunately they’ve had to go back and re-commission coal-fired power plants to keep the lights on.
OK, but Speers wants to know how net zero discussions can be happening if Joyce says that he doesn’t want any jobs in coal lost.
Speers:
I want to be clear on this. As I say, pretty hard how you agree to any net zero 2050 or any time if you are demanding the protection of all coal jobs. This is the bottom line for you: no coal jobs lost?
It is not the bottom line. As I say, I won’t go to the particulars and I do credit your astuteness process of trying to see if I do. What I can say – you would believe the world is moving on from coal, and if that’s the case, there won’t be any demand for the product and of course, you clearly understand, the listeners understand that that is our biggest export. If you start shutting down your biggest export, the government has less money. So when you want money for more pensions or the NDIS, schools hospital, the ABC, you have to accept that we’ve made a decision that we will bring in less money, so there is less places for the government to spend it on. As simple as that. You can’t just keep borrowing money and thinking that’s not ending. Everybody looks at that and economically says, “Hey, guys, Australians, how do you pay us back?” What product are you selling the world that the world wants and if we haven’t got that product, we’re in strife.
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