CO2 Tax Australia – Labor Government Must Face Facts: Its Tax Kills Jobs, Hits Wallets

Posted on Thu 05/24/2012 by PA Pundits - International

By Andrew Bolt ~

A terrible economic decision is putting pressure on the Gillard Government to compensate with even worse ones:

UNIONS will tomorrow demand a five-year federal government support package for the aluminium smelting industry to protect 15,000 jobs, in the face of the likely closure of the Kurri Kurri smelter near Newcastle.

The decision, which is expected to cost 344 jobs, ignited a bitter debate over the carbon tax during question time in parliament and sparked calls from John Hannagan – the Australian chairman of Rusal, a major rival aluminium producer – for the carbon tax to be deferred…

In Canberra tomorrow, Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes will demand an industry assistance package – a co-investment scheme to help aluminium smelters improve the efficiency of their plants – at a meeting of the Prime Minister’s manufacturing taskforce, chaired by Julia Gillard.

It is true that the carbon tax is only a small factor in the company’s decision to close, but it is a factor nevertheless:

Norsk Hydro … said it was clear the plant would not be profitable in the short term. Hydro said the long-term viability of the plant “will be negatively affected by a number of factors, including increasing energy costs and the carbon tax”.

And it’s true that the government handouts demanded by Howes are argued for other reasons:

It is true that Mr Howes will argue that the industry needs temporary support as it confronts a world aluminium glut, a high Australian dollar, and a collapse in the aluminium price.

But for the Government to be asked to prop up so many failing or struggling industries – taking from good industries to protect the bad – is madness that, I suspect, is also prodded in part by a desperate need to prevent the loss of a single job from the carbon tax. After all:

AWU boss Paul Howes has warned his union will pull its support for the Federal Government’s carbon tax if a single job is lost …

UPDATE

A Sydney Morning Herald report on the smelter’s closure cannot bring itself to mention the “c” word.

UPDATE 2

Alan Moran counts the extraordinary cost of trying to “stop” global warming:

Renewable energy requirements cost $2 billion a year, rising to $4bn by 2020. We have $2.7bn a year in government subsidies paid to dozens of programs.

These include carbon capture and storage, the Australian Solar Institute, “clean technologies”, Sustainable Cities and $988 million for the Department of Climate Change.

The average Australian adult now pays $100 a year for renewable energy and $135 a year on various carbon reduction schemes. As of July, the carbon tax will be raising $8.6bn in 2012-13 or $430 a head.

This brings total payments per adult to $665 a year. In addition the $20bn “Clean Energy Fund”, will cost Australians $1000 a head to support proposals that cannot obtain commercial funding and are, almost by definition, losers.

But this is just the beginning, designed to bring a 5 per cent reduction in emissions by 2020. The government’s target is to cut carbon emissions by 90 per cent by 2050 to reduce Australia’s emissions to the world average.

And that doesn’t even include increased unemployment benefits.

Andrew Bolt is a journalist and columnist writing for The Herald Sun in Melbourne Victoria Australia.

Andrew Bolt’s columns appear in Melbourne’s Herald Sun, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph and Adelaide’s Advertiser. He runs the most-read political blog in Australia and hosts Channel 10’s The Bolt Report each Sunday at 10am, and his book Still Not Sorry remains very widely read.

Read more excellent articles from Andrew Bolt’s Blog . http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/