It was a time of big shoulder pads, Versace glitter and National Economic Summits.

In April 1983, then-new prime minister Bob Hawke called an unprecedented gathering of bosses, trade unions, community and church leaders to deal with a crippling recession made worse by drought.

In a grand compromise, workers agreed to fewer pay rises in return for greater social benefits.

The disputing parties had put decades of industrial disruption behind them.

Bob Hawke described the National Economic Summit a quintessentially Australian moment. ( National Archives of Australia )

Mr Hawke would portray it as a quintessentially Australian moment, reflecting our egalitarianism and mateship.

In fact, it was positively German.

Since World War II, Germany has used the same method to deal with its biggest problems: get all the major parties in a room and thrash out a compromise everyone can live with.

Which is how Germany has just achieved something that seems impossible for Australia — negotiating the end of the coal industry.

And it has managed to do it with the agreement of coal miners, environmentalists, coal corporations and energy companies.

Germany's model for finding compromise

In Germany, union representatives sit on the boards of big corporations, bosses and workers work together to improve productivity and politicians act as facilitators of binding agreements.

Discourse and harmony, whatever the outcome, have repeatedly trumped discord, conflict and political point scoring.

This week's Foreign Correspondent looked at Germany's so-called Coal Compromise that will see mines and power plants start to close as early as this year with a complete shutdown by 2038.

Corporations have signed off on the deal in return for $7 billion compensation and coal regions are supporting the closure in return for $65 billion in federal aid to build new, cleaner industries.

The only ones opposed are militant environmentalists who argue 18 years is too long to let the industry keep polluting.

So why couldn't Australia do now what it did in 1983?

It's a variation on a question Germans kept asking me while we were doing the story: Why are Australians not doing as much as Europeans on climate change?

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The questions Germans ask about Australia

As a journalist covering Europe for a decade, I have observed Australia's reputation for going slow on climate action penetrate parts of Europe as surely as our image as a beach holiday destination, perhaps more so in the wake of our summer of bushfires.

As I spoke to Germans for this story, I would explain that we have a much more divisive political system and that climate change had become a political tool for bringing down prime ministers.

I would also tell them our media was not like European media.

Australians can regularly buy a newspaper with someone telling them that global warming isn't that serious, or that is isn't really caused by fossil fuels — or that there wasn't much Australia could do it about it anyway.

And I would try to explain that most of the discussion was about the cost of taking action rather than the cost of inaction.

Climate activists from the group Ende Galaende do not believe Germany's actions go far enough. ( Reuters: Christian Mang )

None of that made much sense to the Germans I spoke to.

European media take a far less sceptical approach to mainstream climate science and while politicians argue about the best ways to cut emissions, there is almost universal acceptance of the need to act.

You simply don't see prominent sceptics or denialists dominating airwaves and newspaper columns.

Germany had a trial run closing down coal

And perhaps more importantly, Germany had a trial run in closing coal mines that had nothing to do with climate change.

In 2007, a summit agreed to phase out the country's deep underground black coal mines because they were unprofitable.

Unlike Australia, where black coal exports remain profitable, only massive state subsidies had kept the industry going.

That money was instead diverted to compensating corporations for closing their holdings and giving early retirement to older miners along with help to find new jobs for young miners.

The coal industry was able to boast that not a single worker was sacked, while the local communities saw there was a future beyond digging up black rocks.

Germany ceased black coal mining operations as they were unprofitable. ( Reuters: Fabrizio Bensch )

That message was especially potent in eastern Germany, where people lived under a Communist regime until 1989.

After reunification, people had watched state subsidies collapse and entire industries disappear without compensation. Thousands who had been raised to expect jobs for life were suddenly unemployed.

Two questions Australia still has to answer

Travelling around the eastern region of Lusatia, where coal is a major employer, I didn't find anybody working in the coal industry who was opposed to the Coal Compromise.

Some didn't think it was necessary to shut the mines. But everyone thought it was a good deal to get billions of euros in public funding to build alternative industries, rather than just hoping that coal mining would never end.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 3 minutes 3 seconds 3 m 3 s Former coal mines have been turned into museums and tourist attractions.

It's a very different context to Australia, and Australian politics in 2020 are very different to 1983.

But the German plan does address two questions that Australia is still to grapple with.

Can a country really cut emissions if it's expanding coal production? And how do you look after coal communities if mining isn't going to last forever?

Watch Foreign Correspondent's 'The Coal War' on iview and YouTube.