Resources Council backs 'facts and science' to beat social media attacks

QUEENSLAND’s resources industry representative body, Queensland Resources Council, has come out strongly behind the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority’s (GBRMPA) capability to make its decision on a dredging permit for the proposed Abbot Point port expansion “based on facts and science, rather than ‘slacktivist’ campaigns using social media”.

 

Chief executive of the Queensland Resources Council (QRC) Michael Roche said the “digital bombardment of the independent decision-maker on the granting of the permit is a perfect example of how anti-coal and anti-gas activists are making full use of social media to create the impression of a groundswell of opposition to these bedrocks of the Queensland economy”.

Mr Roche said, “We are confident that the science that shows that more than 30 years of port development has not been harmful to the Great Barrier Reef will prevail.

“We are equally confident that the activist groups will continue to ramp up their attempts to recruit to their cause the so-called ‘slacktivists’, the people whose only commitment is the click of a mouse to ’sign’ a petition.”

Mr Roche made his point at the release of the latest QRC State of the Sector Report.

He said “in the face of this anti-resources digital storm” the Queensland resources sector continues to employ record numbers of Queenslanders.

The report showed direct resource sector employment hit 80,000 in the December quarter, with another 400,000 jobs created throughout the rest of the Queensland economy on the back of the record $38 billion of resource sector expenditure in Queensland on wages and purchases of goods and services.

QRC’s quarterly State of the Sector Report can be read at: 

 

State of the Sector Report - December quarter 2013

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