by Chris Becker
The fallout from the Mineral Council of Australia’s “coal is good” advertising campaign was almost instant, as the backfire reverberates across social and mainstream media. Even the industry itself recognises the shooting in the foot faux pas.
From Mining Australia, with the Pascometer putting his paw up as well:
The sector, while tech savvy in terms of automation, equipment, and massive pieces of machinery, is well behind the 8-ball when it comes to social media.
But they are on the backfoot, as Michael Pascoe explained at (Industry Dinner held during AIMEX): “The industry lost a war before they even knew they were fighting a battle.”
But when it puts together poorly thought-out campaigns, more harm is done than good.
This #coalisamazing campaign signals a massive shift for the industry, and follows on from another poor PR attempt by the MCA, ‘Australians for Coal’.
In both campaigns the MCA attempted to address some of the ‘myths’ about the resources and the industry itself, but all it did was open itself to ridicule, with environmentalists tearing the campaign apart on twitter.
There was a real opportunity to reach people, and they missed it. Completely. Both times.
Mining is an essential industry for Australia, and it needs to demonstrate the multitude of ways that it supports Australia, and the importance of the various commodities.
By being on the front foot and not giving a blinkered approach the industry can get some of its facts into the debate.
But campaigns need to be honest and show the great things that mining provides, as well as admit that there are some aspects that aren’t so great and acknowledge that as an industry it is working to rectify these issues.
The mining industry needs to find its place in Australian society. First, it needs to get off its high horse that it was “the saviour” during the GFC. No, epic Chinese stimulus and some swift fiscal domestic policy averted the recession of 2009.
Furthermore, the general public needs to understand that structurally, the mining boom has had some negative impacts on the economy. While national disposable income did receive a large boost, these funds were poorly managed – channeled into an already high property bubble and left one of the biggest private debt loads in the developed world. No extra effort was made to invest for the future through a sovereign wealth fund or likewise, as did Norway during its own oil boom. Indeed, the largesse was doubled down by irresponsible governments recycling funds back to tax payers.
In a similar vein, the culture of letting the good times roll and not letting anything stand in the way of the mining boom led to a structurally broken Federal and many State budgets, while the ridiculously high Australian dollar hollowed out all the sectors that would do the heavy lifting once the boom met its natural end. This was enabled by a rotten culture, a quango between corporate Australia including the Minerals Council, the economics profession who cheered from the sidelines, and a political class ready for the quick fix.
The Lucky Country indeed.
Then we get to the climate change quandary. The mining industry, ever selfless, has ensured that debate continues over a problem that has been identified, tested, causes found and solutions offered.
But instead of absorbing the risk management costs that come with producing a product that is the DIRECT cause of climate change, accepting the responsibility and preparing for a lower or zero carbon emission future, it has executed a campaign of misdirection, division and capture of the political landscape.
The end result is that a renewable energy sector lies in ruins, a Windfarm Commissioner is researching the effect of noise and “blight” of turbines as massive open cut coal mines are fast tracked and welcomed, carbon emissions continue to grow as the market alternative to regulation is eliminated, relations with other nations who will be directly affected by climate change deteriorate, and Australia’s overall global standing drops to new lows.
And the mining industry wonders why they get the piss taken out of them? Well, don’t do it on the Australian public’s leg and tell them it’s the rain to break a drought.