Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce has come under fire for telling a conference Australia's economy would falter without coal mining.
In comments reminiscent of Prime Minister Tony Abbott's remarks last year that "coal is good for humanity", Mr Joyce told Tuesday's Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) outlook conference that without coal "we go broke".
Climate groups and progressive thinktank the Australia Institute have accused Mr Joyce of viewing Australia's economy through "the rear vision mirror".
Greens Leader Christine Milne said on Tuesday: "Australia will go broke if we don't move away from coal."
"The longer we cling to this last-century energy source, the more investment and jobs we will lose while the big polluters get off scot-free," Senator Milne said.
"Barnaby Joyce hasn't caught up to the 21st century yet."
Mr Joyce has defended the remarks, with a spokesman saying that the impact of "shutting down the coal industry would be profound and would have a potentially massive impact on taxation revenue and the ability to pay off debt, foreign and local investment, confidence in the economy and employment".
"Coal is Australia's second largest export, contributing $40 billion to national income in 2013-14, according to the Minerals Council of Australia," he said.
"Coal mining directly employed 57,000 people in 2013-14 and indirectly 153,900, according to the ABS. This does not include power generation, coal transporting and shipping, and contracting associated with the industry."
Rod Campbell, research director at the Australia Institute, challenged Mr Joyce's comments.
Mr Campbell said the role of coal in Australian government budgets was "terribly overstated, particularly by people like Mr Joyce".
Research by the Australia Institute found tax and royalties paid by all mining companies made up less than 5 per cent of combined federal and state government revenue.
Analysis of state government budget papers found 2 per cent of NSW revenue came from coal mining specifically, while in Queensland the figure was 4 per cent.
"To put it in perspective, in both Queensland and NSW they raise about the same amount of revenue from car licences and registration and traffic fines as they do from coal royalties," Mr Campbell said.
"But I don't see Mr Joyce running around saying the country would go broke if it wasn't for car rego."
Climate Institute CEO John Connor said Mr Joyce would be right – if he was "looking in the rear vision mirror".
"Coal has been important," Mr Connor said.
But he said "continued unabated coal use" would be an economic and social disaster for Australia.
Mr Connor said the CSIRO and other agencies had repeatedly highlighted "the fact that climate change is already impacting Australia and those impacts will grow."
"And with clean energy technologies becoming more cost competitive, and China and India increasingly focused on energy security concerns about being reliant on coal imports, Australia's coal dependence becomes increasingly risky," he said.
