Environmentalism and the battlers: an unbreakable alliance

Oliver Pether investigates the long-standing affiliation between environmental activism and the working class. 

Despite popular belief, the environmental movement has always shared a strong affiliation with the working class. Disgruntled residents and trade-unions are often at the forefront of conservationist campaigns.

There is a belief that Labor lost the last federal election because it prioritised the needs of an environmentally-focused urban elite over blue-collar workers in the regions. The Carmichael coal mine in central Queensland, popularly referred to as “Adani,” epitomised this conflict.

On the one-hand you had a rust-belt region in desperate need of jobs, and on the other, a responsibility for Australia to act decisively on climate change.

The Liberal-National Coalition supported the mine wholeheartedly while Labor failed to adopt a clear position, creating the perception that the Coalition prioritised workers. Meanwhile, Labor and the Greens were thought to be more concerned with the environment than people. It was as if the two political agendas were incompatible.

However, the reality is that environmentalism and conservationism have always been for the vulnerable, and mostly by them.

The notion that coal mining communities do not want immediate action on climate change is wrong. For example, in the upcoming Upper-Hunter by-election, a poll conducted by the Australia Institute found that the majority of voters do not oppose a moratorium on new coal mines. This is the electorate with the highest number of coal-related jobs in NSW. Miners want change, they just want to be offered a viable alternative first.

The same goes for farmers, many of whom are abandoning the National Party en-masse over its environmental record at the Murray-Darling Basin. The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers won the rural seats of Barwon and Murray from the Nationals in the last state election. They rode to victory on the backs of enraged farmers, rallying against the excessive irrigation upstream and the fish-kills and water-shortages that came with it.

In a similar light, construction workers in Sydney have often abandoned multi-million dollar projects for the sake of conservation and heritage. This is embodied in the “green ban,” a form of strike action where members of a trade-union refuse to work on a project they deem environmentally or culturally threatening.

The most famous example was the saving of Kelly’s Bush in 1971, where local residents convinced construction workers of the Builders Labourers Federation (BLF) to not bulldoze the last remaining bushland in Hunters Hill. Nearly a year later, another green-ban was placed on the Royal Botanic Gardens, part of which developers wanted to turn into a carpark for the Opera House.

Last year, the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), in conjunction with the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association, revoked the green-ban to save Willow Grove. Willow Grove is a 19th century heritage building and former maternity ward in Parramatta. It was set to be demolished for the new Powerhouse Museum, a project worth $800 million.

In a compromise, the Berejiklian government proposed to dismantle Willow Grove and reassemble it in a new site opposite the old Parramatta jail. However, local residents and the CFMEU have argued this would simply ruin the building’s authenticity. 

Representatives of the Dharug people, Parramatta’s traditional owners, have also claimed that moving the building opposite the jail would be distasteful, given the prison’s violent history towards indigenous people.

In a recent development, a local activist group, the North Parramatta Residents Action Group, have taken the government to the Land and Environment Court. They claim the Department of Planning failed to properly assess alternative sites for the museum.

To suggest that environmentalism and conservationism is out of touch with working class Australia is a gross miscalculation. Environmentalism is synonymous with grass-roots politics and has often focused on localised issues. The idea that the country can’t have a strong economy without putting the environment and heritage at risk is absurd. While the government may not understand this, the battlers and the environmentalists do.