(Newswire.net — November 1, 2019) — Morrison’s arguments are about the new “trend” of boycotting a profitable and economically healthy business that Australia has lived off-of for decades, and creating a dangerous job environment for people involved in these businesses.
Morrison described this new type of activism as dangerous to the Australian economy as well as its governance system, as in its core, this type of activism restricts the liberties of Aussie businessmen that are guaranteed through the constitution.
However, the Prime Minister understands the implications of these boycotts. According to his statement, the idea behind protests is understandable, but the execution is what the government has an issue with. Many a coal mining firm has been forced to find alternative ways to conduct business, as other companies pressured by activists have refused to offer them banking, insurance, and various other necessary services.
Morrison mentioned that there is always a middle ground that people could take. There could always be a win-win situation where the coal mining firm can conduct business effectively and have minimal effect on the environment. The PM’s speech concluded with a promise that his administration would not allow high carbon footprint ventures to go unchecked, but neither will they prevent them from setting up shop.
Are the protests warranted?
As things stand right now, the world is not developed enough to completely switch to alternate ways of electricity such as solar power or thorium. Coal still remains a vital part of the machine we call the global economy if it were to be hindered too much, the development of alternate means would be hindered as well.
This is most likely what Morrison was trying to imply. However, it’s not like Australians can allow these large firms to damage the local environment without any kind of consequences or responsibility for fixing it.
Some citizens have proposed to increase or even introduce a tax on the level of carbon footprint. This means that the more a firm damages the environment, the more they have to spend on fixing it while in the process of doing business.
This is a very similar approach to how activists tried to approach the gaming industry in Australia which is slowly starting to get out of hand. The number of casino free spins for Australians was increasing almost every day, but the taxes on these companies would remain the same.
Aussie activists were demanding that companies responsible for producing addictive products or services, that would have serious financial, mental or physical ramifications, should be responsible for funding treatment centers, investing in therapy activities or just having a large cashback for excessive users.
None of them have been met so far due to the government’s close affiliation with these companies as quite a lot of funds were being funneled into the economy from them, but not being used for toning down the damage they were causing.
Therefore, current Aussie activists could combine these two efforts and push a slightly more logical law to be implemented rather than demanding these businesses be shut down. A tax or some kind of responsibility act would enable companies causing any type of harm to redirect profits to fixing them.
Whether or not this is realistic remains to be seen, but in the case of Australia, considering the number of profits generated from raw resources, it should be quite an easy task.