Stuffed frogs & Minerals Council

The Minerals Council of Australia (which represents Australia’s mining corporations) is now engaged in an expensive propaganda campaign against The Greens, because of our opposition to expansion of the coal industry, and our support for alternative energy.

This is reminiscent of the tobacco industry’s campaign during its extensive period of public denial, when it marshalled huge resources and questionable tactics to defend the indefensible.

A large ad in Tuesday’s Newcastle Herald (19 September, page 13) tries to co-opt Kermit the Frog to their cause, attacks green campaigners for having “vested interests”, and asserts that the coal industry “is taking a leadership role in forging a sustainable future.”

Trying to co-opt the icons and language of your opponent and use them as weapons against them is a standard propaganda technique.

But any frog put forward by the Minerals Council is almost certainly stuffed, and the real Kermit – who gave many children their first lessons in respecting the environment - would be hopping mad.

The Minerals Council ad doesn’t explain the alleged “vested interests” of the (unidentified) environmental campaigners it attacks, but a cursory glance at the list of members of the Minerals Council (Minerals Council members) is enough to reveal their vested interests.

The Minerals Council ad implies that The Greens want to shut down the coal industry. In fact, The Greens support the concept of a Just Transition, advocated by the Minerals Policy Institute (Just Transition), a non-profit watchdog group on the activities of mining companies.

But the Minerals Council wants more coal mines, so that “coal fired power will continue to provide the lion’s share of our energy needs for decades to come”.

Its propaganda tries to convince us that we can go on digging up a non-renewable resource which degrades the Hunter’s land, air and water, and increases the already alarming rate of climate change.

Read the Mineral Council’s (very brief) Environmental and Social Policy at:
environment

Then read The NSW Greens policy on coal at Coal.

Who do you think is spinning fairy tales here?

Mohandas Gandhi once said “first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”.

The Minerals Council propaganda campaign shows that they’ve stopped ignoring us.