It is difficult to find an aspect of life in Western Australia that is not touched by the mining industry. State politics, the economy and cultural events all bear its mark. The skyline of the state’s capital–dominated by BHP, Rio Tinto and Woodside–tells the story.
So Perth is the obvious choice for a two-day meeting of environmental vandals looking to hone their destructive techniques. In late November, mining executives, along with WA premier Mark McGowan, will meet for the <a href="https://rtsperth.com/">Resources Technology Showcase</a>, a two-day event dedicated to “the technology future of the world’s most influential mining, oil and gas companies”. In the face of global concern about the current and future impact of climate change, this “unprecedented gathering of mining and energy executives” will be strategising about how to ensure the fossil fuel industry has a long and profitable future.
Challenging the authority of this industry in the mining state is controversial, to say the least. But that is just what a coalition of activists plan to do by blockading the conference.
The WA mining and resource sector is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emission growth in Australia. One part of the industry in particular is behind much of this: the liquified natural gas (LNG) sector. Five of Australia’s seven current LNG plants are located in Western Australia, and together they have been responsible for much of the 23 percent increase in the state’s emissions since 2005 (all other states and territories’ emissions have fallen over the same period). Just two LNG companies are responsible for an entire third of Western Australia’s total carbon emissions.
Western Australia’s gas production has received surprisingly little attention in the national debate about climate change. While there has been a lot of attention on the dangers posed by Adani’s Carmichael mine, not much has been said about Woodside’s Browse Basin and Burrup Hub expansion. At full capacity this hub is estimated to emit three to four times the greenhouse gases of the Adani mine.
A recent report produced by environmental advocacy group Clean State reveals the impact of WA gas to be much greater than what the industry and its government supporters have claimed. According to the report, when all the state’s gas plants come online their emissions will eclipse every other attempt made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Australia. The yearly emissions of these plants, for example, will amount to nearly five times the carbon saved by all of the country’s 2.1 million rooftop solar panels, a timely reminder of the limits of individual efforts to avert climate catastrophe while powerful corporations are allowed to continue profiting from destruction.
The state Labor party is one the industry’s most ardent champions. Earlier this year, when the WA Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed that large polluting projects be required to completely offset their emissions, it was Labor who stepped in to quash the proposal and protect the industry. McGowan assured the LNG bosses that they had his full support, and showed this by not only opposing the EPA proposal, but also strong-arming the agency into publicly withdrawing it.
In addition to this, the Labor government has failed to enforce the environmental regulations LNG projects were greenlit under. Earlier this year, for example, Chevron evaded penalties for not implementing the required carbon capture program at its Gorgon Gas Hub. For nearly two years they emitted carbon dioxide and methane without restriction or consequence, while workers at the plant were exposed to mercury and carcinogenic benzene. Labor’s only response to this was to assure the public that Chevron were starting the carbon capture project soon.
The cosy relationship between Labor and the LNG sector in WA will be on full display at the Resources Technology Showcase. In addition to hosting some of the biggest climate criminals in the world, including executives from Woodside, Shell, Chevron, and BHP, two key Labor speakers will join them on stage, Mark McGowan and state secretary of Unions WA, Meredith Hammat. Hammat will shamefully sit beside some of the most destructive and anti-worker corporations in the world, openly eschewing the basic union principle of solidarity. Not only have some of these corporations exposed WA workers to awful conditions and shocking pay, many have been linked to authoritarian, anti-worker governments.
While the world burns these climate criminals intend to profit right up to the very end. We need serious and public opposition to their agenda. All around the world, climate criminals must be treated with the enmity they deserve like our collective future depends on it. 
 
The blockade of the Resource Technology Showcase will begin at 8am on Wednesday 27 of November at the Perth Exhibition Centre. A contingent will also join the blockade later in the day, marching at 9am from Forrest Chase.

Chris Macfarlane

Climate showdown looms in mining state

“Labour shouldn’t be treated as a commodity!” This is the rallying cry of Perth bus drivers who for the past month have been engaged in a campaign against public transport contractor Transdev.
The campaign started in early October as enterprise bargaining stalled after months of negotiations. Workers have implemented fare-free days and had a series of stop-works.
Drivers want to be paid the same as their colleagues employed by other contractors in the city. Transport Workers Union state secretary Tim Dawson told Perth’s 6PR radio that workers would need at least a 3 percent annual pay rise, on top of inflation, in order to catch up. Transdev workers also accrue only three weeks of annual leave per year, and receive 1 percent less in superannuation contributions than other drivers.
Added to that, there is a higher level of casualisation and part time employment at Transdev, with no clear path to permanent or full time positions.
The workers face a number of challenges in their campaign, most stemming from the division of the workforce between companies. Since the mid-1990s, Perth’s bus services have been privatised, with companies submitting tenders to run individual routes. This has led to services being managed by three separate contractors: Transdev, Swan Transit and Path Transit.
This has allowed each contractor to negotiate a separate agreement with the union. This not only leads to differences in pay and conditions within the industry but also means that workers in the same union, employed in the same industry, are not able to take joint industrial action.
Transdev and the state government have exploited this weakness, mobilising non-union drivers, and drivers from other contractors, to minimise the impact of work stoppages. Transdev knows that this puts it in a strong position. 
The company appears unlikely to meet the workers’ demands any time soon. Drivers will have to increase the pressure if they are to succeed.

Perth bus drivers take on Transdev

Justice has once again been denied to the Indigenous community. In August 2016, Elijah Doughty, an Indigenous teenager from Kalgoorlie, WA, was chased from the road while riding a motorbike and struck down by an unnamed pursuer in a two tonne ute. He was killed instantly. On 21 July, his killer was found not guilty of manslaughter by a Perth jury.
He was instead found guilty of the lesser charge of dangerous driving occasioning death, and as a result could be out of prison as early as February 2018.
In a stunning display of the double standard in the criminal justice system, Elijah’s killer could be out of prison before a man charged over his involvement in the “Kalgoorlie riots” that erupted in the wake of the killing. That protesting the death of a Black teenager at the hands of a white man warrants almost as much time in jail as the killing itself exposes the systematic prejudice of the criminal justice system.
It’s no wonder that Indigenous people in Western Australia are 20 times more likely to be imprisoned than non-Indigenous people. In a recent address to the Criminal Lawyers’ Association of the Northern Territory, the chief justice of Western Australia admitted, “[A]t every single step in the criminal justice process, Aboriginal people fare worse than non-Aboriginal people”.
The police play an important role in entrenching this racism, this case being no exception. In the lead-up to Elijah’s murder, WA police were aware of a number of Facebook vigilante groups as well as vigilante actions carried out against Aboriginal children. Elijah’s grandfather, Albert Doughty, told the media following his grandson’s death, “Kids have been chased in cars for too long, and reported, [but] nothing done about it”. Knowing this, the police directed Elijah’s killer to Gibble Creek, the site of his death. Elijah’s killer made a point of this in his interview when he snapped at detectives and told them, “Tell him [the officer he spoke to]: what was your intention in telling me to go down there and look for it?” After the crime, the police ignored usual crime-scene processes, failing to preserve or examine physical evidence in a way that would be inconceivable had a white person died as Elijah did.
During the trial, police maintained an overbearing presence in both Kalgoorlie and Perth. In spite of the fact that the trial was taking place in Perth, some 600km away, police formed a protective ring around the Kalgoorlie courthouse when the verdict was announced. In Perth, police horses and bikes outnumbered those who had gathered in solidarity outside the court on the morning of the verdict. And glass barriers were erected inside the court in anticipation of violence from the Aboriginal community members present. For the racist police, the grieving Aboriginal community must be treated as the principal threat.
It would be remiss not to mention the media coverage of this case. Initially there was no interest in the death of Elijah; he was just another dead Aboriginal kid in a country town. What drew their attention was the protest that erupted in the wake of his death. A “violent mob”, as many news outlets described it, and a couple of broken windows were a more familiar narrative.
There were no stories about the promising young football star from Kalgoorlie whose life had been cut short. Instead, from that point on, the only story about Elijah that was run relied heavily upon the defence’s version of events. From this, we are told that Elijah was riding a motorbike that had been stolen from the assailant. The implication is that Elijah had stolen it, but this has never been proven. Not one outlet questioned the defence’s assertion that Elijah had swerved in front of the car before he was struck, despite the fact that no one could verify this claim, and police had allowed any evidence that might have contradicted it to be destroyed.
One could only imagine what the response would have been if Elijah and his killer swapped skin colours: he probably would have gone away for murder, not dangerous driving. Instead another Indigenous person has had their life cut short and their name dragged through the mud, and the Indigenous community has been vilified and imprisoned for responding with legitimate anger.

Climate showdown looms in mining state

Perth bus drivers take on Transdev

No justice in racist Australia

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