Australian unions have called for an energy transition authority to be established in the budget, pushing the Albanese government towards greater investment in decarbonisation.
The president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Michele O’Neil, will make that call in an address to the National Press Club on Tuesday, proposing the authority coordinate schemes to retrain, redeploy or compensate redundant workers in fossil fuel industries.
The ACTU also released a letter to the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, signed by more than 70 prominent business peak bodies, unions, investors and climate organisations backing the creation of an authority. These include the Australian Industry Group, the Investor Group on Climate Change and the Australian Conservation Foundation.
Last week the Greens called for a national energy transition authority in a Senate inquiry backing their private senator’s bill. The move was rejected by Labor senators on the basis it would duplicate the work of existing agencies.
The ACTU, with its 38 affiliated unions and 1.8 million workers, has much greater institutional sway within Labor. The call for an energy transition authority is backed by the mining union and the Electrical Trades Union, both affiliates of the Labor party.
According to excerpts of her speech, O’Neil says the authority would “support the workers at fossil fuel facilities that will phase down in the transition to a net zero carbon future”.
“That means individualised labour adjustment packages to guarantee workers affected by the transition have access to quality, secure, and safe jobs,” she says.
“These should include industrywide pooled redundancy and redeployment schemes, education and training opportunities, income replacement and relocation packages where necessary, and early retirement packages where voluntary and appropriate.”
According to O’Neil, the government has “concluded rightly that it can’t just rely on high carbon industries to reduce their emissions at the pace required by climate science … That is why we needed legislation”.
“Likewise, we cannot rely on these industries to simply do the right thing by their workers when a facility is closing down.”
“The authority has to make sure employers are doing their fair share – not just turning their back after doling out the bare minimum redundancy payments.”
O’Neil’s speech says the authority would also “help fund robust economic diversification plans for regions transitioning away from fossil fuel industries” and make sure that education and training is in place.
Diversification could include “leveraging federal and state incentives and investments to drive new renewable infrastructure into those regions – whether a factory manufacturing batteries, an electrolyser producing green hydrogen, or a processing plant refining Australian cobalt for export”.
The speech notes say some of this work is already occurring “in the absence of federal leadership” and the authority would complement existing work “by conducting analyses of feasibility and comparative advantage only possible at the national level; and by compelling participation from all of the key players, including industry”.
The Greens senator Penny Allman-Payne introduced a private member’s bill to establish a transition authority in September.
The Senate economics legislation committee, chaired by Labor’s Jess Walsh, said that parliament could “work together towards a flexible, inclusive transition authority” but it would be “premature” to establish one now.
It cited the work of the net zero economy taskforce in the department of the prime minister and cabinet, and said the authority could risk “duplication” of the advice role of the Australian Energy Market Operator.
The Coalition senators suggested that “instead of creating another government body, the market should be further supported to invest in low and zero emissions energy and transmission infrastructure”.
After delivering the Greens’ dissenting report, Allman-Payne said “the case for a national energy transition authority is overwhelming”.
“The latest IPCC report sheets home just how quickly we must get off coal and gas and transition to a zero-emissions economy,” she said in a statement.
“In this parliament, the only thing standing in the way of climate action is Labor. If Labor wanted it, Australia could have a transition authority in place by June.”
