Wednesday, 3 December 2025

 Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (19:34): (2203) My adjournment this evening is to the Minister for Climate Action and Minister for Energy and Resources. Recently we saw the return of the massive protestival Rising Tide at the Port of Newcastle. Thousands showed up to camp together, attend workshops, listen to music and take to the bay to blockade the port, demanding an end to new fossil fuel projects and a 78 per cent tax on existing fossil fuel export profits to pay for the damage caused by fossil fuels and to fund the transition away from them. The protesters successfully turned back three coal ships and showed once again the huge power of a community determined to shift away from fossil fuels in a way that supports the people and communities that currently are dependent on this industry.

Coal exports are in structural decline. South Korea, Australia’s third-largest coal customer, recently announced it will shut down all 62 of its coal plants by 2040. In China, our largest customer, imports are expected to drop 22 per cent this year. Without a clear government-led phase-out, communities like Newcastle and indeed Victoria’s Latrobe Valley will likely be abandoned when fossil fuel multinationals decide it is no longer profitable for them to stay. Despite this clear global trend and the urgent need to phase out coal if we want to maintain a livable climate, we see Australian governments clinging to the delusion that we can keep burning coal indefinitely. In New South Wales the Labor Minns government has just announced that it will be extending the life of the Eraring coal plant beyond its planned closure in 2027, which itself was an extension from its planned closure in 2025.

Coal is bad for the environment, bad for the health of locals near the plants and a death sentence for our climate, and it is increasingly expensive. Governments across Australia and the world should be rolling out clean, cheap renewables to drive down emissions as well as people’s power bills. Minister, I seek that you rule out copying the mistakes of Labor in New South Wales, rule out extending the life of Victoria’s coal-fired power stations like Yallourn and ensure there are clear plans to transition communities into a future with good jobs and abundant clean energy. We need to facilitate renewables and get cracking on transmission lines because every day that Labor fail to meet their own renewables targets and prop up dirty fossil fuel giants, they burn another 100,000 tonnes of the world’s most polluting coal and make climate change worse.