Camikaze said:
Which newspaper questions the Greens policies on the basis of their economic efficacy, rather than on the basis of 'OMG they didn't get a majority of the vote but they're controlling the country '?
None? That isn't strictly true, the Fin Review does, but it's still isn't that crash hot at doing it.
Camikaze said:
Actual realistic analysis by anyone who actually understands the party is rare on the ground, and generally conducted by people who kinda support the party, like this.
That's kind of a given, the Greens went from being an insignificant third party with no political clout into something of a power-broker in an election. The media hasn't quite caught up yet.
Arwon said:
In terms of jobs; there's not that many, textiles lost more jobs in the 1980s than exist in the entire coal mining and coal electricity generation sectors currently, and they're not going to disappear overnight anyway.
Eh, that's a fair point. (At least directly, indirect job losses are far more signficant, like anything).
Arwon said:
In terms of electricity generation; plenty of very different generation mixes are achievable, and of course there's plenty of jobs in setting those up.
In the construction phase. There's little to no long-term job creation. (In fairness, this isn't unique to the alternative power generation: mining is like this).
Arwon said:
In terms of export revenue, yeah, ok, that's $40 billion of exports total, but: Firstly, nobody's proposing to turn that off overnight.
Just for the record I wasn't arguing that. Even so, this is worrying enough on its own:
Greens Policy said:
oppose the establishment of new coal mines and the expansion of existing mines
Which feeds into this:
Arwon said:
even the most uncharitable genuine scrutiny would accept that the idea is a medium to long term decline in production like any other structural reform of the economy
It would force mine shut-downs pretty quickly. Mines are planned over decades, most expand progressively during the course of their lives. Banning expansion, let alone, banning new mines would pretty quickly shut-down the industry. That's just how mining works. If we'd banned say expansion of any mines, as a hypothetical, three years ago, I can say with a fair degree of confidence that we would be lucky to have a mine still operating in the Northern Territory now. That's the consequence of just-in-time planning.
Arwon said:
Secondly, is the coal boom going to last forever?
I'm not sure how this matters... coal has historically been one of our largest export industries. Even if it were to decline, it would still be one our major exports.
Arwon said:
Prices have risen sharply in the last 2 or 3 years, who says they'll stay there forever?
I just don't see how this is relevant. At worst, a sharp decline in prices might see some of the more marginal mines mothballed. But that doesn't tell me anything I don't already know. Besides, fluctuating prices are somewhat different from a government edict? The last time the government interfered in the mining sector we ended up with the 70s and the complete gutting of the industry. And the time before that killed Australia's gold industry.
Wooooooooo.
Arwon said:
Thirdly, our coal production for export is pretty geographically concentrated into parts of Queensland and New South Wales, surely it can't be keeping the entire country afloat.
GPD = I + C + G (X - M). And coal raises X rather a great deal. Enough, it seems, to have kept us out of a reccession. So in a way, it certainly did. And still does. Our CAB would be looking rather poor without it.
Arwon said:
Fourthly, where does all that export revenue end up going, and how much of it ultimately benefits Australia directly with a decent multiplier effect?
Eh, I could ask the same question about Green Industries. And the answer to that is complex.
Arwon said:
Fifthly, from the commodity boom there's also a large cost to other sectors due to the impact of the high Australian Dollar
Eh, its not a question of whether or not the costs are high but whether or not the costs are on balance better or worse for the economy. The literature would seem to support better.
Arwon said:
(not to mention that with coal exports booming, even electricity generation from black coal is also going to get more expensive).
Could be cheaper if the dollar continues to appreciate
Arwon said:
Oh and sixthly, given that 50% of Australia's domestic emissions are from energy production, it would be entirely possible to argue for winding that down whilst continuing the export of thermal and metallurgical coal to Asian countries, relying on the carbon price impacts (and their own policies of course) to raise that coal's price enough to have some impact on their electricity mix and the electric arc furnace to blast furnace ratio in steel production.
I have few problems with closing domestic coal plants. And I doubt that would happen. We don't control the thermal or metallurgical coal production. In the long run, what we lose will flow elsewhere. Indonesian coal is looking attractive.
Arwon said:
If our future requires constant and increasing levels of coal output, then I'm not sure it's looking super sustainable in the long run even if you ignore the global warming impact and our 80% emissions reduction target by 2050.
We'd be lucky to be growing even at trend without the mining sector.
Arwon said:
It's very valid to ask what the alternatives are and how quickly it's reasonable to expect coal production to start dropping off (would love to see the Productivity Commission and Treasury to put their minds to modeling different coal production decline scenarios), but it is exactly as valid to ask whether we're planning to be heavily reliant on coal forever and how viable that plan is.
I doubt it would follow that we would shut down the industry. They might argue for diversification via reform (lower corporate tax rate?) but that's about it.
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