Mick spent years working for the State Electricity Commission in Morewell, Victoria , until privatisation saw massive job losses and the outsourcing of many remaining jobs.
Many of Mick's mates never worked again, and the early days of hope created by good redundancy payments petered out into years of forced idleness, low self-esteem, financial troubles and family stress. Mick got casual work with a maintenance contractor, but for three years was given on average two months a year work.
Mick's experience has made him sceptical of politicians and others coming down to talk about opportunities from the transition to a low carbon economy. With Morwell and other towns of the La Trobe Valley still dependent on brown coal burning power generators, action to tackle climate change sounds more like a threat than a promise.
The task faced by the Gillard Government, and others interested in real action on climate change, is not persuading people like Mick that climate change is real — it's making sure they aren't cast on the scrap heap during the process of economic restructuring, and ensuring that they are properly involved in this process.
There is no point pretending that action to reduce the threat of climate change will have little effect on the structure of the Australian economy. The issue is not about how to protect industries and communities from change: it is about how to manage change in a socially just and democratic way.
A first step might be to acknowledge the political and institutional impediments to a just and sustainable transition. As the controversy over the Government's carbon price policy has demonstrated, our political system and media are unable to deal with complex long-term policy issues maturely.
The exposure of the political system to lobbying and manipulation by narrow interest groups such as mining companies and other major polluters impedes the development of sound policy.
The Australian business lobby has shown itself to be adept at rent seeking, but reluctant to engage with the possibilities of the transition to a low-carbon sustainable economy.
The Government will need to think carefully about industry restructuring and community transition. Leaving it up to 'the market' and those who have most power in the market — business — is a recipe for further rent seeking based on manipulation of adjustment funds. There will be no guarantee that money intended for industry restructuring will be used to help workers, rather than for redundancies or to off-shore business activities.
Industry restructuring must be seen broadly, and not just involving particular businesses. Restructuring must involve whole communities. This requires the widest possible engagement with communities, and the implementation of effective governance arrangements, particularly around allocation of restructuring funds.
Along with efforts to price carbon pollution and invest in renewable energy, we need to start devising governance structures to enable the transition. In regional areas that are highly dependent on heavy polluters, this might take the form of Community Transition Authorities (CTA).
These would engage with stakeholders: businesses, unions, local governments, community organisations, local people, community service and infrastructure providers and so on. Representation on the CTA would be determined by a mixture of appointment (by businesses and unions, for instance) and direct election.
The CTA would establish goals, which might include a vision for the type of economy (perhaps the preservation of a focus on manufacturing; or transition to high-tech services; or an increase in tourism), as well as population and social development targets.
The primary purpose would be to allocate and manage funding for transitional programs broadly conceived and not restricted to industry. Specific industries seeking funding for restructuring would apply to the CTA, which would consider the application against a number of criteria: need; effectiveness in achieving the goals of the CTA; contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions; and ameliorating other environmental destruction.
CTAs would replace the Government's Regional Development Authorities. RDAs have little direct democratic input and operate according to a consultative model rather than a participatory democratic one. They provide advice on how to get government funding, rather than democratically controlling its distribution.
CTAs would operate according to deliberative democracy principles. Plans, proposals and applications adopted by the CTA would be subject to public deliberation, during which proponents and experts present their cases in open public forum and can be questioned and challenged. Such forums could be streamed on the CTA's website. The members of the CTA would consider the information and decide on appropriate action.
It is important that we begin to develop such new approaches to governance. People like Mick must be part of the nation building exercise that creating a clean economy could be — not its victims.
Colin Long is Victorian Secretary of the National Tertiary Education Union.