Waleed Aly asks Albanese how he can believe in climate change AND support the coal industry
Albanese dug the hole for himself:
Albanese said: ‘Labor has to stand for jobs, economic growth, good distribution when it comes to social policy and to stand up for the environment and climate change – I don’t think there’s a contradiction between the two things’.
Waleed Aly seized on this line to pointedly ask: ‘How do you stand up for jobs and the environment if those jobs happen be in the coal industry?’
Mr Albanese did not directly answer the question, instead saying that ‘good sustainability policy creates jobs’.
‘Look at the renewable energy target, we introduced a 20 per cent target and that has created many thousands of jobs around Australia,’ Mr Albanese said .
But Aly interrupted to claim these jobs would not go to coal mine workers, who would presumably lose employment with less coal produced.
‘We have a challenge to explain our position, clearly we didn’t do well enough and we need to engage with our base as well as people who didn’t vote for us,’ Mr Albanese replied.
‘The first step is to acknowledge what happened on Saturday – we got one in three Australians to vote for us, that’s not good enough.’
Source: Daily Mail Online