237. Introducing the Clean State Stories, with former Director Chantal Caruso

As introduced last week, today launches a special festive season series of the Clean State Stories. This was a series of nine episodes I produced a few years ago for the Clean State podcast, dedicated to regenerative transitions in my home state of Western Australia. Sadly, the podcast and its host non-profit are no more. But the series of episodes featured such brilliant guests and stories, that are still so very relevant, and not just to West Australians, so we resolved to re-release them here.

The opening episode features highly respected former Director of Clean State WA, Chantal Caruso. Chantal was also the lead author of the Clean State Plan, outlining how to create hundreds of thousands of livelihoods for people in energy, agriculture, building, transport, tourism, and the care economy. The vison was to house and employ everyone, avert multiple catastrophes, and transition to a regenerative, fair and prosperous society.

And the plan highlighted a stack of brilliant stories from around WA of people already going about achieving that vision, also highlighting the enormous opportunities that await.

You can access the Clean State Plan, and its brilliantly formatted Summary, towards the bottom of the episode web page (where you can also find a 7 minute bonus episode of previously unreleased material from this conversation, if you didn't catch it in your podcast feed).

Recorded in one of Chantal’s favourite parts of WA, in September 2020.

Title slide: Chantal on-location (pic: Anthony James).

With thanks to the Conservation Council of WA, auspicing organisation for Clean State WA, for permission to re-release this series.

This episode was originally released as ‘Launching the Clean State Jobs Plan: A conversation with lead author Chantal Caruso’.

To hear the rest of this series, and more stories of regeneration around WA, Australia and the world, follow The RegenNarration wherever podcasts are found, or on the website.

And for more from behind the scenes, become a supporting listener via the links below.

Music:
Eden is Lost, by local artists Selfless Orchestra.

Chapters

• 0:07 Climate Action and Job Creation
• 8:12 Economic Recovery Plan Through Green Jobs
• 14:19 Building a Sustainable Future Together
• 23:35 Supporting Clean State WA Initiatives

Transcript

Chantal: 0:07

Our whole kind of reason for being is to show that climate action is mainstream, that the community are hungry for it, that the focus shouldn't be on individual action. That's important, like we all want to do the right thing, but I think people get very disheartened when they're not seeing leadership from our government. And if they took leadership, they would be so supported, and that's why we're there. We're there to build a constituency to show that it is mainstream, and they would be so supported by taking action.

AJ: 0:38

G'day and welcome to the Clean State WA podcast. My name's Anthony James, host of The RegenNarration podcast, on board with you here for this special series dedicated to our home state of Western Australia. What if we had a plan, at this time of great disruption, to create hundreds of thousands of jobs in energy, agriculture, building, transport, tourism and the care economy, a plan that would house and employ everyone, for us all to play a role in building back better from the coronavirus, averting climate catastrophe and transitioning to a regenerative, fair and prosperous Western Australia? The newly launched Clean State Jobs Plan has brought together industry and other partners from across the state and is directly contributing to the government's COVID-19 recovery agenda, for the urgent transitions we need are underway and there is no shortage of work to be done. So here on the Clean State Podcast, we speak with the West Australians going about achieving the plan, the thousands of jobs being created to get the work done, the success being achieved and the enormous opportunities that await. To kick us off,

AJ: 1:56

the voice you heard at the top was Chantal Caruso, director of Policy and Research at Clean State and the lead author of the plan. Chantal is such a wealth of knowledge, vision and humanity and she met me in one of her favourite parts of WA for this conversation. Now we're in a special part of WA for you. Can you tell us where we are and why?

Chantal: 2:18

Yep, so we're in Mary Street in Mount Lawley. This is such a special place to me. I pretty much spent my entire teenage years and all of my years after I moved out of home in Mount Lawley when I've been in Perth, and it's just such a special place because it's so close to the city and there's so much diversity here and also heaps of opportunities here. So at the moment, mount Lawley is facing a bit of a rough patch. Beaufort Street, where we're sitting, really close to one in five of the shops on Beaufort Street are actually empty and we're seeing a lot of yeah, a lot of need for some revitalisation here. So I'm part of the Beaufort Street network as a volunteer to look at how we can bring some life back and get some excitement back here, but also it's just, it just feels like my second home we're here today to focus mostly on where you work at a state level, and you've done that for quite a long time in your life, so you're bringing a serious background into clean state.

AJ: 3:15

Yep, but can you tell us the story of clean state? Where did it come from?

Chantal: 3:18

yeah and what's it for so clean state is a relatively new organization. It's an initiative that was started about two years ago and it's a completely independently funded initiative. It's a think tank and it's also doing advocacy and campaign work around the opportunities for climate action in Western Australia and we've got a specific focus on job creation and economic development out of climate action. So that was very deliberate. We saw that there was a gap in the climate conversation and that major parties weren't prosecuting the argument on jobs very well and fear doesn't motivate people, unfortunately. You know climate change is terrifying. It's one of the most terrifying things we could possibly face.

AJ: 4:02

It sort of paralyzes people, it's really paralyzing and it's also infuriating that leaders aren't taking more action.

Chantal: 4:09

But anger and fear doesn't motivate people as much as talking about opportunities does and providing solutions, and so that's very much why we're here, and when Clean State first started, they focused specifically actually on the gas industry here in WA, because a lot of people didn't realise that that's our single biggest polluter and it's growing.

Chantal: 4:29

So it's not only our biggest polluter, but the emissions are growing. There's not really any controls on that industry here and, just for some context, five of the LNG facilities here in Western Australia are contributing almost one third of our total pollution. It's a massive amount of pollution and it's actually really easy to control. So our first set of work at Clean State was looking at how could you capture the benefits of offsetting that pollution here in WA, and we found that it's entirely possible to offset it here and you could create 4,000 jobs in things like carbon farming and renewables and savannah burning. So that was really exciting and we got a lot of traction with a couple of reports we did then looking at the impact of the gas industry on climate change, and then we pivoted to jobs, which has been really exciting for us.

AJ: 5:19

And that segues beautifully to the jobs plan which we're going to talk about here. But first, before we do, let's catch on to that gas industry issue, Because one of the things you're trying to do is depolarise that conversation, not demonise the people in the industry who have contributed what they've contributed that we have valued for so long, and just put a cap on it. So, no new projects and then work about transition through the sorts of mechanisms that you're talking about here.

Chantal: 5:47

Yeah, you 100% hit the nail on the head.

Chantal: 5:49

That's right.

Chantal: 5:50

We definitely don't want to demonise anybody, but what surprised us is actually, I think the Western Australian community think there are many more people working in the gas industry than there actually are.

Chantal: 6:01

So there are more people working in McDonald's, for example, in WA, than the gas are. So there are more people working in McDonald's, for example, in WA, than the gas industry, and so for us, that was really surprising and something that we needed to talk about. So it employs relatively few people, and, of course, we want those people to be treated well in their jobs and to have great security. We know, though, that a lot of those people would probably rather be working in secure jobs in renewables and not have to do FIFO work, and would rather be. I know a lot of the people on the terrace, for example, that work for these gas industries would love nothing more than to be doing renewable energy and hydrogen, but we're just not seeing that happen in WA because there's not the leadership there and there's policy levers that are kind of driving that action in WA yet, and that's a real shame.

AJ: 6:46

Yeah, but you are finding business and union groups are coming on board with that sort of agenda.

Chantal: 6:52

Well, I think what we offer which might be a surprise to the industry is actually a really solutions-based approach. So we don't want to demonise folks in the gas industry. We want to say, hey, that's fine, there's five facilities operating. We just think that their pollution could be offset as a very bare minimum. It has to be offset. You know this is the critical year and the critical decade for climate change action and I really, really want to emphasise that it's the critical decade for emissions to fall 7.6% every year for the next 10 years.

AJ: 7:23

Which is what they've done pretty much this year.

Chantal: 7:26

Yeah.

AJ: 7:27

Unintentionally, but that gives you the idea.

Chantal: 7:29

Exactly and it shows what a task it is. But you know what a great opportunity, what a great opportunity to say look, we can have our cake and eat it too. We don't want to shut down the gas industry. We definitely don't want new developments happening. There's just no room in the atmosphere for that. But for those that are existing, let's create jobs out of drawing down that carbon pollution and put more people to work than currently work in those rigs, in beautiful things like carbon farming and really large-scale renewable projects out in the regions where they're desperate for jobs and things like traditional working on country with savannah burning, for example. So there's all these new industries, jobs and things like traditional working on country with savannah burning, for example. So there's all these new industries that we could kick start tomorrow if we just had a policy on offsetting those emissions.

AJ: 8:12

Well, just listening to you speak when we're talking about the sorts of transitions and opportunities that we need and we haven't even touched on COVID yet of course which relates to the government coming on board with this, the foundational principle, if you like, seems very clear that there's a lot of work to be done.

AJ: 8:28

So the basis for a jobs plan, for creating jobs, isn't just make work schemes, which they often can be right. There's a lot to be done. Let's just turn it into frameworks that actually generate the jobs for people to work where they are and get the work done. I guess it's one of the touchstones of government. They're always talking about jobs.

Chantal: 8:47

So this should be an easy sell, in a sense.

AJ: 8:48

But it's not only jobs that matters. It's the money from mining, for example. So they've got a very low jobs count, but other things they value. So to what extent does this require a change in focus to be more about employing people, less about crude cash flow?

Chantal: 9:06

That's such a good question and again, what blew us away in the research that we've been doing is that not only is the gas industry a low employer, but also the taxes and the royalties we're collecting off those industries that, by the way, are making $5 billion a year in profit are next to zero. Woodside pays a little amount of tax, but the rest Chevron and Shell aren't paying any tax or any royalties on those massive windfall profits that they're making from our resource. It's our resource, it's Western Australia's resource and it's a once-through resource, so it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us to generate income and get the best that we can out of that resource. But actually it's almost been given away and it's a great injustice in a way that we've set ourselves up for that, and it's also really concerning that our government is so you know, rightly obsessed with jobs creation and that's always the excuse, for example, with them pushing the Burrup Hub project, so Woodside's Barup Hub project, which, by the way, is going to. They are planning to exploit two of the world's biggest gas fields off the Kimberley hub of the Murrajugo Rock. Hard is really close by and that's going to be the dirtiest gas in the world. It's going to be the. The pollution will be four times the size of the Adani coal mine six billion tons into the atmosphere over the next 70 years. It's just insane.

Chantal: 10:32

And they keep saying, oh, but it will create 900 jobs. So I think it would be easier to save our honey industry, for example, which employs the same amount of people, if really, if we're just talking about crude numbers of jobs, our jobs plan shows how we could create 200,000 jobs in different sectors. So I'm kind of left wondering. Well, I don't really think it is about the jobs and it's certainly not about the money we're getting from the industry, because we're not getting royalties or taxes. There's not really any benefit flowing to Western Australians. And by blocking action on climate change, where the industry has blocked action on strong greenhouse gas policies, they're also blocking job creation through offsets. So we're kind of left wondering well, what is it? And that's actually what we're looking at at the moment and we're looking at is it the political influence's actually what we're looking at at the moment? And we're looking at is the political influence, and the revolving door is something very murky in Western Australia.

AJ: 11:28

So you've just launched the Clean State Jobs Plan and it has, as you've said, 200,000 jobs potentially from 26 major ideas and out of COVID. It might be worth saying that there are expected to be 64,000 job losses in WA and some of those industries were struggling or needed to transition as well, so there's pre-existing needs to transition. So, in a way, we've got a leg up. Perversely, it's started, the process has started, so it is the ideal time for this plan. And over to you then how it came about and how it's connected to government process right now, and then we'll talk about some things that are actually happening.

Chantal: 12:08

Yeah, so this has been kind of a year in the making our jobs plan. We recognized pretty early on after the last federal election that the the major parties, just are not prosecuting a good argument or a good, a good story around jobs in all of the industries we know we should be really investing in and and spearheading in Australia because we have such amazing resources, not only with sun and wind, but the people and the ingenuity and the engineering here. So that was kind of a dream of mine was to help develop a jobs plan that could help government see what was possible and could help them articulate what was possible. And so COVID really came at this weird time where everyone's getting so worried about climate change but nothing seems to be happening. And we had the EPA policy that came out and then got pulled back, and we also don't have much of a champion in government in terms of climate change action. We have our premier that's really pushing the gas story, and so all of those factors were kind of building up.

Chantal: 13:10

And then COVID came along and strangely it has brought this incredible opportunity to not only just to pause and reflect on what's important, but we saw from scientists and from the medical community and from the EU and from business leaders and just this growing number of voices, the demand to build back better. There's this conversation out there globally which is just so inspiring and, yes, it's come from this incredible tragedy. But COVID has given us this opportunity to stop and to look at how we can solve multiple crises at once, and for us, that is the climate crisis. It's the economic crisis you mentioned 64,000 people being out of work and we're now officially in a recession, which is really scary but also communities being left behind. In a state as rich as WA, it's heartbreaking that we've had this incredible wealth and mining boom, but there are so many vulnerable communities being left behind, and so those three factors are what COVID really highlighted for us as an opportunity to solve all at once.

AJ: 14:19

So the government formed a COVID recovery advisory group, which you're on board with. How's that going and what has it led to so far?

Chantal: 14:30

Yeah, great. So our sister organisation, the Conservation Council of WA, was appointed to the Premier's expert panel and you know, to his credit, it's great that Premier McGowan did have an expert panel. He had 23 people appointed to that panel and what a great thing to do. And so we had a seat at the table through Conservation Council, who we work quite closely with, and that gave us the opportunity to take all of the work that we'd amassed at that point, because by that stage I'd been like literally spent.

Chantal: 15:01

I spent lockdown on the phone and on Zooms back to back talking to the most incredible, you know, 90 different experts and stakeholders and people locally and also nationally, and some international experts, but mostly locals, reaching out and talking to these people and looking at what these ideas could be. And we were able then suddenly, through being appointed to the expert panel, to turn all of that into what we call a white paper. So that was basically a very high level summary, looking at each of the ideas, what our proposal was, what the benefits would be, how much job creation lay in that idea, the carbon emissions reduction potential and who we'd spoken to. So it was basically like a really punchy summary and through that process. We were able, as well then, to pretty much hit the phones and just get our white paper to everybody that we knew inside departments. We sent it to relevant ministers' offices and ministers as well, basically just saying here's a draft white paper, here's what we're thinking for recovery, here's why building back better is so important, here's how it could be done.

Chantal: 16:08

Would love to talk, and we had incredible doors open to us and, as someone that's worked inside government and in a lot of different settings, it just felt like the most access I've ever had, and the feedback we were getting is that people inside departments, and ministers as well, are really hungry for ideas, and people inside departments are also scared and ashamed of what they're not getting done, and so I want to really emphasise I guess to listeners and also a reminder to myself that you do get results from pushing and providing solutions and having a plan on the table. So that's definitely been what we've seen, because now, out of COVID, we've seen the government had five billion dollars on the table for a recovery package and we've been mapping what they've been announcing and been really heartened to see that they're almost ticking off a lot of the proposals we put on the table, not to the level we would like, and so there's still work to be done there, and what are we talking about?

Chantal: 17:08

We're talking about solar schools, so one of our proposals is to put solar and batteries in every one of our 870 public schools. That's because you could save an average of about $30,000 very conservative, conservatively per school and if you calculate that over the lifetime of the panels, it's $435 million. It's just phenomenal Like this. Work is so much fun because you get to see benefits like that.

AJ: 17:32

And conservative? Well, at least partly because the education leverage you get out of that on top of that means all sorts of other behaviour changes Exactly yeah, Kids are in more comfy classes.

Chantal: 17:43

They can learn about the technology Like there's just so many benefits, Community hubs et cetera.

Chantal: 17:47

So we proposed 870. The government proposed 10, for example. Another example is social housing. So we've got two really big ideas. One is to build 15,000 new social housing dwellings because that would basically build out the waiting list. There's a thousand people in Western Australia sleeping rough every night and another 14,500 on our waiting list and they're waiting. They're languishing Like literally they have nowhere to go and they're waiting more than two years to get into a home.

Chantal: 18:16

So we said, well, let's build low carbon housing. Put construction industry people to work who've really suffered, make that housing really really high quality and energy efficient so that the tenants would have no bills, save them heaps of money, local stimulus. We also said let's retrofit and repower every one of our existing social housing homes because they're very, very inefficient, very expensive to heat and cool. We know that folks with lower incomes living in that housing sometimes go without food or other things so that they can pay their bills. So the impact of a very basic retrofit program to social housing would be incredible and put a lot of people to work. 600 people in insulation overnight would get put to work through that and other people in electrical trades and so on, plus solar you'd throw on.

AJ: 19:04

To say nothing of the people in the houses, who would then be in a better position to contribute to transition as well.

Chantal: 19:08

Exactly so we said, well, let's retrofit all 44,000 of our social homes, and then the government came out with a plan to retrofit 600.

Chantal: 19:16

So it's almost like they've looked at our plan and they're dipping their toe in the water and they're saying we'll give them that, but just a smidge of it, and see how it goes. And so we can look at that in two ways. We can, and I'm a stubborn optimist and I think it's fantastic because so many honestly so many of our things are being announced. We're keeping track of it and we'll put on our website soon so that people can follow what kind of traction we're having.

AJ: 19:43

And, of course, we'll have more on the podcast as we go. Yeah, so you're really looking to build a constituency for all this? And the polling, not only in Australia but around the world, shows vast majorities of people want the quote-unquote green transition. Tell us a bit about what we're seeing there.

Chantal: 19:59

Yeah, great question. That's been the really surprising and inspiring thing. So the way that the media reports on climate change, you would think that at least half of the people in Western Australia are climate deniers and that we have no chance. Actually, we've done surveys two years in a row with almost a thousand people, so really big sample size that show actually 85% of Western Australians want action on climate change 85%. We are in the vast, vast majority and our survey also showed that only 4% were what you'd call deniers.

Chantal: 20:29

And so why are we focusing all of our media effort and policy effort at that tiny little 4% that will never shift. It's just such great news and this is something I think that's been really powerful for Clean State to discover and to be putting in front of everyone that government is really receptive to this and our whole kind of reason for being is to show that climate action is mainstream, that the community are hungry for it, that the focus shouldn't be on individual action. That's important, like we all want to do the right thing, but I think people get very disheartened when they're not seeing leadership from our government and if they took leadership, they would be so supported and that's why we're there. We're there to build a constituency to show that it is mainstream and they would be so supported by taking action.

AJ: 21:15

What do you envision for 2030? Or, just out of all this, how do you imagine Western Australia?

Chantal: 21:25

You know it only hit me the other day that I'm going to be alive in 2050 and in 2030, you know where we have these big targets. We know that we need to halve our emissions by 2030 and have no emissions by 2050. So I had always thought of it in this kind of abstract sense, like are we going to get there? But now I've started to try and imagine it, how it will be, and I there's two scenarios, right, and it really scares me because this, the first scenario, is business as usual, is that we're just going to be bumbling along like we are.

Chantal: 21:57

But, like I said before, I'm a stubborn optimist and I think that there is the work that I've done and the work Clean State is doing shows that there's just such hunger and hope in the community for a better WA, for a place that is prosperous and renewably powered and beautifully designed and there's jobs and they're well paid and they're secure, where we're contributing to this idea of a better place. And that's my hope and that's what kind of gets me out of bed, like just to be able to show that that's possible. And that's where we of gets me out of bed, like just to be able to show that that's possible and that's where we're heading.

AJ: 22:30

And what do you say to the listeners here in terms of what they can do to support the plan? Get involved.

Chantal: 22:36

Yeah. So there's a state election in March, so we're very much running a really big ground campaign to talk about climate change in the community and to make sure it's a really mainstream thing to talk about and where a lot of people are getting involved in our campaign. So I'd just encourage people to jump online and come to one of our info nights where you can find out how to get involved. We've got all these different ways people can get involved. But also, I'm a really big fan of reaching out to your local member. I think definitely what we're hearing when we brief politicians on this kind of stuff is that they're just not hearing it enough and unless we can let them know that there is a groundswell and that they will risk losing their seat if they're not strong on climate action, they won't do anything. So I really encourage you to reach out to your local member and talk to your family about it and just try and get active and get vocal.

AJ: 23:26

Terrific. Thanks very much for speaking with me. Well done on the plan. It's extraordinary. Thank you, and I'm looking forward to the rest of this series now.

Chantal: 23:32

Thank you so much.

AJ: 23:35

That was Chantal Caruso, director of Policy and Research at Clean State WA, on location in Mary Street, mount Lawley. For more on Clean State WA and how you can support the jobs plan or get involved with climate initiatives and other action in your community, see the links in the show notes and, of course, to hear the rest of this series, subscribe to the Clean State podcast on your favourite app or head to the Clean State website. The music you're hearing is by Selfless Orchestra, an emergence of WA musicians inspired by issues of social and environmental justice. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening.