Anti-coal activists TAI 'caught out again' claims QRC

THE The Queensland Resources Council claims the "left-wing think tank" The Australia Institute (TAI) has been "caught out attempting to put a wrecking ball through Queensland’s economy and jobs with dodgy digits".

According to the QRC, the TAI report, ‘Never Gonna Dig You Up’, claimed the Queensland economy ‘would not be affected at all in the short term and barely affected’ in the medium to long term if coal mining ended.

QRC chief executive Ian Macfarlane said the importance of the coal industry to Queensland’s economy had never been more critical to regional communities "and for TAI to produce a report about coal with a Western Australian gold mine on the front cover reflects how much they know about the industry".

The report claimed there would only be 1,400 net job losses across the country from ending coal mining in Queensland and NSW and that Australia would experience an overall reduction in GDP of 0.6 percent.

However, according to QRC, a review of TAI’s report by highly credentialed Cadence Economics found that the ‘research’ was based on unfounded assumptions and discounted critical economic impacts.

Key findings of the Cadence Economics analysis of the TAI report included:

• TAI’s entire paper is based on an unexplained and unrealistic assumptions regarding employment: TAI assumes the job losses caused by ending coal mining would be picked up by ‘other sectors,’ including having workers move from the coal producing regions of Queensland and NSW to Victoria and Western Australia. In other words, they assume that real jobs will be replaced by phantom ones. 

• TAI’s report significantly underestimates that the net number of coal jobs that would be lost from ending the coal industry: TAI claims net job losses would only be around 1,400. However, using the same employment modelling parameters as the Commonwealth Treasury, Cadence Economics estimates jobs lost would be between 20,000-40,000 across the nation. Even at the lower end that’s a TAI miscalculation of 18,600 jobs or 95 percent. 

• Impact on Queensland economy would be ‘catastrophic’: TAI’s own research glosses over the economic impact to Queensland which Cadence Economics describes as ‘catastrophic.’ As well as the significant job losses, ending the coal mining industry in Queensland would result in $3.8 billion in lost mining royalties and a staggering $72 billion total loss to the state’s economy. 

• Massive impact on the Mackay and Fitzroy regions: The TAI report virtually dismisses the disastrous impact that ending coal mining would have on the Mackay and Fitzroy regions. Using TAI’s own numbers, Cadence Economics estimates a cumulative economic loss for these regions of $28.3 billion. 

“These quasi-economic reports will only denigrate the natural resource sector’s ability to provide jobs in communities and royalties that pay for nurses, police and teachers,” Mr Macfarlane said.

“The authors of TAI report appear to have no understanding of economics and the figures put forward seem to be borne out of the centre for creative accountants. This report is yet another example of anti-coal activists holding back the economic prosperity of Queensland.”

www.qrc.org.au

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