LAUNCESTON, Australia, May 19 (Reuters) – While Australia’s opposition Labor Party is the obvious loser from the weekend election, the anti-coal environmental lobby suffered probably a bigger blow and will need to re-think its strategy to end mining of the polluting fuel.
The conservative Liberal Party-led coalition is likely to have pulled off one of the great political escapes by returning to office for a third term, confounding polls and pundits who thought Labor was a near certainty to win the May 18 election.
While Prime Minister Scott Morrison may not secure an outright majority in the 151-seat lower house of parliament, results indicated that Labor, led by former unionist Bill Shorten, would have no chance of victory.
One of the battlegrounds between the two major parties in the campaign had been climate change, with Labor promising far stronger action that the Coalition, which counts among its parliamentarians several who are decidedly pro-coal and sceptical of the science of climate change.
Morrison, prior to becoming the third Liberal leader in five years last August, once brandished a lump of coal in parliament in a show of support for the mining industry and the use of the fuel in generating electricity.
For the rest of this column: https://www.reuters.com/article/column-russell-coal-australia/column-australias-shock-election-shows-killing-coal-mining-is-no-sure-thing-russell-idUSL4N22V02Z