Plibersek has to follow at least two Golden Rules; don't let the lights go out and don't threaten the trade surplus. Since Australia imports most of its oil and southern cities are running out of gas we'd be in strife if we didn't keep drilling. As for coal it's generating about 10GW of baseload power on a sunny, breezy day. The alternative is that horrid nuclear.

I understand most of the coal extensions are for metallurgical coal. Green steel was supposed to do away with it but so far it hasn't arrived past the demo stage. We can only wait.

The whole scene is one big joke.
The only one laughing seems to be Chris Bowen, even though he hasn't
seen the joke yet !