Media Release: Greens respond to Eraring speculation

As Greens' Treasury and Energy Spokesperson, Abigail today condemned NSW Labor for their failure to close down coal and invest in renewables, ahead of decisions to keep Eraring open.

Quotes attributable to Abigail Boyd, Greens NSW MP and spokesperson for Energy and Treasury:

“Labor can’t hide behind this report. It doesn’t say we have to keep Eraring open, it says we need to rapidly get more renewables online to avoid any need to keep Eraring open. We have two paths ahead of us - either we choose to keep pandering to the fossil fuel industry by keeping coal-fired power stations open longer than they need to be, or we urgently invest in publicly-owned renewables.

“We can’t leave the energy transition of our state to the whims of big business. Labor needs to fill the decades-long leadership void and actually start calling the shots, and spending the money, when it comes to energy policy in NSW.

“Not a single dollar of taxpayer money should be paid to underwrite the profitability of a private coal power generator. If Eraring is to stay open a single day past its scheduled closure date, then it should be as a publicly-owned generator. The people of NSW are sick and tired of being the underwriters of fossil fuel capital.

“What is crystal clear to the Greens is that we should never have privatised these energy assets.

“What we need is a clear transition plan for closing down our coal-fired power stations, taking into account not just energy reliability, but also the quickest way to bring down our greenhouse gas emissions while still supporting workers and communities. When we look at these issues from a broader perspective, there may well be merit, for example, in bringing forward the closure date of Vales Point to before Eraring.

“We look forward to viewing the modelling undertaken in regards to this situation, and coming to terms with what assumptions the NSW Labor government have deemed appropriate for an issue of such urgency. Doing this will help us determine the right path forward together - it will help give confidence that it is the Government leading this transition, and not big business.

“This ‘will they, won’t they’ speculation is terribly distressing and frustrating for the dedicated workers operating these power stations, who still have no transition plan for when these plants do close.

“I look forward to asking Energy Co about this report tomorrow at our consultants inquiry,” Abigail Boyd said.

TAX SUPERPROFITS TO PAY WORKERS MORE

NSW is missing out on tens of billions of dollars. By introducing a progressive coal royalty structure similar to the one in Queensland, we would have raised an extra $20 billion last year.

The NSW Government owns and controls, on behalf of the people of this state, the rights to the minerals and materials that naturally occur in NSW land.

Huge fossil fuel companies are only able to extract and sell these commodities with the consent of the State. It’s time they paid a fair price for that privilege.

The fossil fuel industry has made hundreds of billions of dollars out of their cosy relationship with governments. Granted permission to extract and sell coal, these large multinational fossil fuel corporations pay just over 7% in royalties back to the people of NSW – keeping the rest as mega-profits for themselves. These companies have a track record of taking more than their fair share and leaving communities suffering and stranded with poisoned groundwater, devastated landscapes and a stranded workforce when it suits their business models.

Globally, the hyper-inflation of fossil fuel prices driven by price-gouging opportunism and war profiteering from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has delivered record windfall profits to these already obscenely wealthy corporations. In the last year, NSW coal exports totaled over $70 billion dollars, but the people of NSW will only see about 7 cents in every dollar, or about $6 billion dollars of that amount.

Rather than going toward schools, hospitals and public infrastructure, billions of dollars went into the pockets of multinational mining corporations. The Greens believe there should be more money for schools and hospitals and less for mining billionaires.

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Media Release: Greens respond to Eraring speculation

TAX SUPERPROFITS TO PAY WORKERS MORE

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