New coalmines in Queensland don’t help existing communities, they hurt them

This week in Queensland, Anthony Albanese has been devastating in exposing the lies, hypocrisy and absurdity of the National party’s election “promise” to build a new coal-fired power station. 

The consequence of interstate competition to
attract new coalmines is that taxpayers and
the world’s climate pays a high price.

That even the idea of building such a power station hasn’t demolished the economic environmental and political credibility of the Morrison government tells you a lot about what is wrong in Australian politics today.

But how do we square the circle on the broader coal debate? Internationally, the debate between those who think it’s time we talked about fossil fuel supply (think Adani, the Keystone XL pipeline or the Canadian oil sands) and those who want to keep the focus on fossil fuel demand (think talk of targets, trajectories and closing down coal power stations) has been brewing for some time.

But there’s no need to fight. Alfred Marshall was the economist who invented what we now think of as supply and demand curves. He was once asked whether it was supply or demand that determined price – his response was that it was like asking if it was the upper or lower blade of the scissors that did the cutting.

Read the story from The Guardian by Richard Denniss - “New coalmines in Queensland don’t help existing communities, they hurt them.”