August 2018: Australian coal exports reached $60.1 billion in 2017-18, the highest ever level and only just behind iron ore exports at $61.4 billion. According to figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, resources exports accounted for $220 billion of total exports of $400 billion that includes all goods and services (like education and tourism). On these numbers coal accounted for 27% of all resources exports, and 15% of all international trade by Australia with the world.
The Executive today pays tribute to all workers’ resilience and determination to get a better deal after Hazelwood closes – you have stood up and fought when governments, investors and business would otherwise have done nothing.
Tony Maher's speech to the ACTU Just Transition Conference - Canberra - 10 November 2016.
Workers in Australia have spent decades being restructured. It may be inevitable, but they haven’t been happy about it. Especially about the way it’s been done – generally without justice or fair burden sharing. When it comes to Just Transition, I say that we have to give content to what is otherwise only a slogan.
It has taken the dogged persistence and unrelenting determination of our Union to expose the scandalous return of the deadly Black Lung disease in coal mineworkers in Queensland.