If the Prime Minister is fair dinkum about creating a clean economy future and developing a diverse and robust economy that will carry us through the gloom following the boom she needs to move the Minister for Resources, Energy & Tourism, Martin Ferguson, out of his portfolio and separate the Energy and Tourism portfolios.
Of course, Julia Gillard is probably very committed to a great economy that is as clean as it is diverse and robust, but given the pressure she’s under at the moment, dealing with Mr Ferguson is probably fairly low on her list of things to do – also the Minerals Council have told her she’s not allowed to move him – so that won’t happen.
But here’s why it should.
The week began on the West coast of the nation with historic numbers of police – over 140 – being flown to the sleepy tourist town of Broome to ensure Woodside had safe passage to move its massive earthmoving equipment down to James Price Point. The path was being blocked by up to 30 protestors. All of this was done at a cost to tax payers of $1 million.
You don’t need to be a McKinsey consultant to know that any company that needs a small army of police to protect its operations clearly has no social license to operate. Nor do you need to be Lara Bingle to know the sight of riot police swarming through town and stopping tourist cars and coaches is going to have an impact on the image of Broome as sleepy, relaxing, cool, holiday destination.
So how did it come to this?
In short Minister Martin Ferguson told Shell, BP, BHP Billiton, Chevron and Woodside that if they wanted the gas out of the Browse Basin – a couple of hundred kilometres off the coast of WA – they would have to process the gas at James Price Point. This, despite the fact that Shell, BP, BHP Billiton and Chevron would prefer to pipe it to Kurratha or- in the case of Shell – build a floating platform above the resource and process it out at sea.
Ferguson justifies this in John Wayne terms like, “use it or lose it.” He argues the desecration of extraordinary country and the death of a great town is worth it because it will turn James Price Point into one of the biggest ports in the world within a few short years.
Indeed even as police were escorting Woodside’s equipment into place, Ferguson was spruiking the joys of turning James Price Point into an industrial wasteland.
Across the other side of country Ferguson is pulling out all stops to ensure the Great Barrier Reef gets the same kind of care and attention he’s given James Price Point and Broome.
Sure the Reef may employ over 60,000 people – mainly through small family businesses – and generate over $5 billion a year and indeed be one of the seven natural wonders of the world, but there’s no reason why it can’t also have the world’s biggest coal port built in the middle of it and have over 10,000 coal ship cutting through it each and every year. At least as far as Mr Ferguson is concerned that is an entirely reasonable proposition.
I can just see the TV ads now: Queensland, beautiful one day, a tip the next.
It has never been clear why anyone would put the Resource and Energy portfolio in with Tourism because the portfolios are inevitably in conflict. So how does Mr Ferguson manage these tensions?
He ignores what he can and bullies what he can’t.
For instance, on the question of destroying the tourist industry on the Reef if he manages to get all his industrialisation through, he resolves it by simply flick passing the issue to Environment Minister, Tony Burke, and hopes like hell his colleague won’t use the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act to foil him.
In the same way he has not made any attempt to reassure the Broome community that their tourist businesses will survive the onslaught of 6000 contractors living up the road in a camp or the construction of one of the world’s biggest ports, he has not made any attempt to explain to Queensland tourist operators how having the biggest coal port in the world in the middle of the Reef will make the Great Barrier Reef a more attractive holiday destination – especially if one of those 10,000 coal ships runs aground through the Reef.
But when it comes to the people who want to protect communities and the environment from his boom, he has this to say:
“But you’ve also got to understand that there are some NGOs in the Australian community who will continue to demonise fossil fuels. The challenge is not to demonise fossil fuels. The challenge on climate change is to reduce emissions. Gas is clean energy. Carbon capture and storage is the potential solution to coal-fired power internationally.”
The reference to carbon capture and storage is just offensive. As my colleague, Julien Vincent spells out, few seriously believe carbon capture is anything more than a fig leaf of a political excuse.
But Ferguson finished this speech with his usually bully-boy tactics, saying:
“I’m not concerned, and that’s the nature of being the resource and energy minister in Australia. And the benefits go to those NGOs. Where else do they get their charity-free status? Who pays for it?”
Prime Minister it really is time for Mr Ferguson to go somewhere else. And it is time you separated the Resource portfolio from Tourism because our tourism industry is taking the kind of kicking it may not survive.
Macken Sense is a weekly metabolic breakdown of media and green events by our astute commentator, Julie Macken. Follow Julie Macken on Twitter @juliemacken.
