Does a carbon price mean the end of Australian steelmaking?

Sunday April 3, 2011

By Chris Williams

Manufacturer BlueScope Steel has been at the forefront of the campaign against the carbon price proposed by Labor and the Greens.

Chief Executive Paul O'Malley has argued it could spell “the end of steel manufacturing in Australia”; something the Opposition Leader Tony Abbott agreed with during a recent tour of BlueScope's steelworks in Port Kembla.

Both have said that a price on carbon would threaten the company's profitability and therefore force operations offshore in search of cheaper labour.

The Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) has said BlueScope’s comments were “scaremongering”, but workers at the Port Kembla plant are worried about their jobs.

BlueScope and Abbott have implied that the cost of any action to cut the industry's emissions would be automatically passed on to workers through job losses.

The big contradiction in their argument is that no action to reduce emissions will really mean the end of the steel industry in Australia. For example, a sea-level rise of one metre would devastate infrastructure at the Port Kembla plant.

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