Globalization and Confrontation: The Transformation of the Australian Coal Industry

The paper examines the trends and techniques now being adopted by the Australian coal mining industry to improve efficiency and competitiveness in the face of an increasingly difficult international and domestic coal market. Quality Assurance certification to internationally accepted standards has been gained by some operators whilst many more companies are implementing varied forms of Total Quality Control concepts. These concepts now so well established in traditional manufacturing industries, have not previously been associated with the vagaries of the coal industry but are now being pursued by many in an effort to gain or retain a competitive edge. The paper also explains some of the actual processes being undertaken by the mining companies and outlines some of the systems being developed and utilised to undertake preliminary analysis and evaluation of existing and proposed management systems prior to implementing TQC systems.

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The Australian coal industry

Resources Policy ◽

10.1016/0301-4207(80)90003-3 ◽

1980 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 3-18

Author(s):

Michael Folie ◽

Gregory McColl

Keyword(s):

Coal Industry ◽

Australian Coal

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THE AUSTRALIAN COAL INDUSTRY

Economic Record ◽

10.1111/j.1475-4932.1948.tb01221.x ◽

1948 ◽

Vol 24 (2) ◽

pp. 238-241

Author(s):

F. R. E. MAULDON.

Keyword(s):

Coal Industry ◽

Australian Coal

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CoalLog: the standard for collection, recording, storage and transfer of geological and geotechnical data for the Australian coal industry

Applied Earth Science ◽

10.1179/1743275813y.0000000032 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 122 (1) ◽

pp. 30-35 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

J V Simmons ◽

A P Maconochie ◽

B J Larkin ◽

D R Green

Keyword(s):

Coal Industry ◽

Geotechnical Data ◽

Australian Coal

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Black coal, thin ice: the discursive legitimisation of Australian coal in the age of climate change

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications ◽

10.1057/s41599-021-00827-5 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Roman Stutzer ◽

Adrian Rinscheid ◽

Thiago D. Oliveira ◽

Pedro Mendes Loureiro ◽

Aya Kachi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Mass Media ◽

Language Processing ◽

Coal Mine ◽

Coal Industry ◽

Daily Newspaper ◽

Economic Role ◽

Mainstream Media ◽

Australian Coal ◽

Mitigate Climate Change

AbstractDespite mounting urgency to mitigate climate change, new coal mines have recently been approved in various countries, including in Southeast Asia and Australia. Adani’s Carmichael coal mine project in the Galilee Basin, Queensland (Australia), was approved in June 2019 after 9 years of political contestation. Counteracting global efforts to decarbonise energy systems, this mine will substantially increase Australia’s per capita CO2 emissions, which are already among the highest in the world. Australia’s deepening carbon lock-in can be attributed to the essential economic role played by the coal industry, which gives it structural power to dominate political dynamics. Furthermore, tenacious networks among the traditional mass media, mining companies, and their shareholders have reinforced the politico-economic influence of the industry, allowing the mass media to provide a venue for the industry’s outside lobbying strategies as well as ample backing for its discursive legitimisation with pro-coal narratives. To investigate the enduring symbiosis between the coal industry, business interests, the Australian state, and mainstream media, we draw on natural language processing techniques and systematically study discourses about the coal mine in traditional and social media between 2017 and 2020. Our results indicate that while the mine’s approval was aided by the pro-coal narratives of Queensland’s main daily newspaper, the Courier-Mail, collective public sentiment on Twitter has diverged significantly from the newspaper’s stance. The rationale for the mine’s approval, notwithstanding increasing public contestation, lies in the enduring symbiosis between the traditional economic actors and the state; and yet, our results highlight a potential corner of the discursive battlefield favourable for hosting more diverse arguments.

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