AAP General News (Australia)
04-15-2011
FED:Unions step up carbon price pressure
(EDS: Adds new Combet quotes)
By Paul Osborne, AAP Senior Political Writer
CANBERRA, April 15 AAP - Prime Minister Julia Gillard is coming under renewed pressure
from unions to compensate industries for the carbon tax or make them exempt, in a bid
to prevent job losses.
Australian Workers Union secretary Paul Howes on Friday called for the steel industry
- which employs around 91,000 people - to be exempt from the tax, or at least 100 per
cent compensated.
Mr Howes recently visited steelworks with Climate Change Minister Greg Combet, who
was jeered and heckled by workers as he attempted to explain the government's policy.
The union leader said after what is understood to have been a tense meeting with AWU
chiefs in Sydney that his union's support for a carbon price - which is due to be legislated
in the third quarter of the year - could be withdrawn if one job was lost.
Mr Howes said there was a special case for a carbon tax exemption for steel, which
was going through a hard time with the high Australian dollar and rising raw materials
prices.
"We have a responsibility to the men and women of this country who go to work every
day and make products that this country uses," Mr Howes said.
He was backed by construction industry boss Tony Maher who said: "It shouldn't cost
a job, and we won't stand by if it costs jobs."
However, Ms Gillard, other unions and Greens Leader Bob Brown - who is on the committee
drafting the scheme - argued pricing carbon would create jobs over the long term.
"I want to make sure people have jobs, too," the prime minister told Triple M radio.
Senator Brown said Mr Howe's threat smacked of "economic illiteracy", adding that the
carbon price was a "patent job creator".
AMWU national secretary Dave Oliver said Australia could not afford to be left behind
in the global shift to pricing carbon and doing nothing would "cost jobs".
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said he understood why some unions were talking about
withdrawing their support.
"They've very understandably taken the view that you can't compensate someone who has
lost his or her job," Mr Abbott said.
Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said that while the government had not settled
on a carbon price, under a $20 a tonne setting with 94.5 per cent assistance the steel
industry faced a $2.60 hike in the cost of making a tonne of steel, which currently sells
at $800.
Mr Combet told AAP he would not speculate on which industries would receive special
treatment, but was mindful that "unions need to stand up for their members' jobs".
"The government will provide assistance to trade-exposed, emissions-intensive industries,
including steel, to support jobs and competitiveness," he said, adding that such assistance
would be "very significant".
The minister earlier told coal miners at a conference in the Hunter Valley jobs would
be maintained, while households would benefit from more than half of the revenue collected
from the tax.
"There are some mines that have very high levels of methane that will incur a significant
carbon price liability, and we are going to use some of the revenue to support jobs in
those particular mines," Mr Combet said.
"Unions are progressive organisations, and supporting (the carbon price) is in their
best interests."
AAP pjo/mo
KEYWORD: CLIMATE SECOND WRAP
� 2011 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.
