Retired coalminer challenges Rudd over green jobs

Retired coalminer from the Hunter Valley, Graham Brown, is about to embark on a national speaking tour to call for a more serious program to create green jobs and phase out coal.

Brown believes Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s recently announced green jobs package is far from what is necessary to tackle climate change and create jobs:

“Rudd’s announcement shows how little the government knows about what green jobs should be. I would class green jobs as those that are part of the low carbon economy. They are jobs related to achieving this economy.

“The days of business-as-usual and pollute-at-will are gone and if the ALP is serious about doing something to reduce greenhouse gas emissions then Rudd needs to implement more than just work for the dole plans,” said Brown. <!--StartFragment-->

Since retiring from coalmining in 2007 Brown has committed much of his time campaigning against the industry that employed him for nineteen years. The national speaking tour, organised by socialist youth organisation Resistance, will put the spotlight on the potential for a transition away from coal-fired energy that creates tens of thousands of new jobs in the renewable energy sector.

“If we’re going to get serious about global warming”, Brown said, “it needs to happen straight away. It can happen virtually straight away. We have figures from researchers that say every power station on the East coast of Australia can be retrofitted with solar thermal over an eight-year period and that would tie in with our phasing out of the coal industry.

“There will be more jobs in a green economy,” Brown concluded.

For more information contact: Mel Barnes 0423 978 518 or Simon Cunich 0438 297 552

Tour dates:

Sydney: August 8-11

Wollongong: August 12

Perth: August 13-15

Melbourne: Aug 16-19

Hobart:  August 19-20

Adelaide: August 21-22

Newcastle: August 24

Brisbane: August 25-26