Green Jobs Now | No Gas Led Recovery by James Sherriff and Ruby Pandolfi (NSW ASEN Convenors, 2021)
The climate crisis is a class issue. The Coalition government is pushing Scomo’s “gas-led recovery” as the solution to the COVID crisis. It consists of the fast-tracking and funding of new coal seam gas (CSG) fracking sites across Australia, the extraction of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG), and the development of infrastructure such as pipelines and railways to export LNG overseas.
shift, while workers are denied the opportunity and benefits of a just transition process. We should be building renewable energy infrastructure across the continent, whilst fighting for guaranteed jobs for displaced workers, democratic control of workplaces and industries, and justice for communities affected. Instead, the expansion of the CSG industry will line the pockets of executives and shareholders with public funding, tax write-offs, and the huge profits that will be made from exporting LNG overseas.
It is a blatant example of how the government is using COVID as a cover to push the burdens of the economic recession onto the working class, at the expense of the planet. In the context of increasing unemployment, cuts to wages and bene-ARCHIVALS At the same time, the federal govfits, and underfunded public services, ernment has continued to erode governments and big business are worker rights and union protections, continuing to put profits over the cli- seeking to remove the “better off mate, First Nations sovereignty and overall test” and cut rates and conthe livelihoods of ordinary people. ditions. It is clear who is getting a better deal from this ‘recovery’. This ‘recovery plan’ follows a pattern of workers rights being eroded by suc- This is a rerun of past battles, not a new cessive Australian governments since issue. The expansion of the fossil fuel the 1970s Accords, and demonstrates industry has repeatedly been forced the link between the exploitation through by state and federal governof workers and the intensification of ments, while mass movements calling the climate crisis. The contradictions for genuine climate action and a workinherent to capitalist development er-led transition to publicly owned are clear: the very path proposed renewable energy have been stifled. out of this crisis will only plunge us deeper into environmental disaster. This is because the government is beholden to the interests of Pushing a gas-fired recovery only the coal, oil, and gas companies delays the inevitable shift towards which fund both major parties, not renewables, and allows private com- the constituents it supposedly is panies to reap the benefits of this elected to “represent”. The state
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