Labor’s emissions-reduction jobs pledge under fire
Labour movement luminary Jennie George has attacked as “unbelievable’’ Anthony Albanese’s climate change pledge to create 604,000 new jobs.
Labour movement luminary Jennie George has attacked as “unbelievable’’ Anthony Albanese’s climate change pledge to create 604,000 new jobs, as Labor MPs demand security for mining and industrial workers affected by the 2030 plan to slash emissions by 43 per cent.
Ahead of a major address to the National Press Club by opposition climate change spokesman Chris Bowen on Monday, Ms George – the first female ACTU president and a Labor federal MP for nine years – warned that a “carbon price” on high emitters would threaten the “livelihoods of real people, their families and communities”.
In a letter published in The Australian, Ms George, who represented the seat of Throsby that takes in the steelmaking district of Illawarra in NSW, said “the inputs, assumptions and outcomes” anchoring Mr Albanese’s climate change modelling would be tested in the coming weeks.
The Powering Australia climate change policy that Mr Albanese and Mr Bowen released on Friday said the plan would create 604,000 jobs, with only 64,000 of those being direct and 540,000 indirect.
“The multiplier effect used in Labor’s promises of 540,000 ‘indirect’ jobs is so high as to make it unbelievable,” Ms George said. “Steel, the backbone of the Illawarra regional economy, has a multiplier effect of 3-5 for every direct job.
“Building transmission wires, solar and wind farms in isolated places would lead to very low multipliers in practice. So how did Labor’s modelling arrive at an extraordinary multiplier of nine in calculating the number of promised ‘indirect’ jobs? While much was made of the supposed jobs to be created, no mention was made of job losses under Labor’s plans.”
Ms George questioned whether the RepuTex Energy modelling had “tracked the fate of 100,000 ‘carbon workers’ in coal mining, integrated steelmaking, fossil fuel generation, gas and oil extraction”.
Scott Morrison on Sunday attacked Mr Albanese’s policy as “a lot of noise’’, while highlighting that electricity prices had risen under the last Labor government and Julia Gillard had broken an election promise not to introduce a carbon tax.
Josh Frydenberg also warned the 43 per cent emissions-reduction target by 2030 would become an opening bid given Labor would need Greens support to pass legislation through the Senate and their 2030 target was 75 per cent.
Mr Albanese used a major speech on Sunday to say it was time to “put the climate wars behind us (and) unite around a common vision”.
“We can become a renewable energy superpower,” the Labor leader said. “Over the last decade the Coalition has announced over 20 energy policies and not landed a single one. Business has missed out on certainty, and Australians have missed out on jobs.
“Labor has announced exactly one energy policy and it is the one we will implement in government. The opportunity for the country to move forward is right in front of us. Labor will seize it. We will make more things here, powered by cheap renewable energy produced by Australian workers.”
Labor MP Meryl Swanson, who represents the marginal NSW Hunter coalmining seat of Paterson, said the climate plan must be “about jobs”.
“I want people who are in good, secure blue-collar mining and industrial jobs to feel secure and for them to know I am fighting for them,” Ms Swanson said.
Ms Swanson, who backs the 43 per cent target with “protections” in place, said she wanted to look after the people who had “literally poured blood, sweat and tears into this region”.
“I have expressed my view to Albo and to Chris Bowen and expressed it very much in the lead-up to this policy,” she said. “I’m sorry for the Greens because they are fantasists. I need to protect the jobs in my region. I am confident we have picked a very good sensible policy. I’m happy with how cautious we’ve been about this. We’ve done the modelling and 43 is where it’s landed.”
The outgoing Labor MP for Hunter, Joel Fitzgibbon, who spoke out against Bill Shorten’s 45 per cent emissions reduction target after the 2019 election defeat, said the plan would put “downward pressure on electricity prices, bring carbon emissions down (and) make sure we don’t forgo jobs”.
Mr Fitzgibbon said it was critical that “no existing job is adversely affected by this policy”.
Ms George questioned Labor’s plan to lean heavily on Australia’s 215 highest-emitting businesses and facilities, which fall under the safeguard mechanism requiring them to meet baseline emissions levels. Facilities which emit more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, many of which are based in the regions, would be required by Labor to reduce their emissions baselines gradually, in line with achieving the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.
Ms George said “the announced carbon price on high emitters threatens these existing jobs and the viability of industries, particularly those that are trade exposed”.
“The livelihoods of real people, their families and communities are at stake,” she said. “No doubt the inputs, assumptions and outcomes that went into Labor’s modelling will be tested in coming weeks. Serious questions need straightforward answer.”
Labor deputy leader Richard Marles on Sunday rejected suggestions that planned changes to the safeguard mechanism, requiring big polluters to drive down emissions faster, would amount to an effective carbon tax.
“The safeguard mechanism was put in place by this government,” Mr Marles said.
“There are 215 companies which are already captured by it and all we are doing is taking the baseline in that mechanism (and) doing what the Business Council of Australia has urged and to gradually reduce that baseline through to 2050. That’s what we are adopting here. We are actually supporting what business wants. A whole lot of businesses are moving in this direction anyway.”
Mr Marles did not say how much extra companies captured by the safeguard mechanism would need to spend on carbon offsets under the proposed changes. “At the end of the day, this is what the business is asking for. But the point to be made here again is that there is opportunity as well,” he said.
The opposition employment and skills spokesman defended the 43 per cent emissions-reduction target as a “sensible proposition” that would create jobs. He rejected Mr Morrison’s claims that an Albanese government would join a coalition with the Greens after the election.
The Prime Minister warned that “Labor are going to say a lot of things between now and the next election”. “They said they weren’t going to have a carbon tax last time and they ended up putting one in,” Mr Morrison said. “They saw electricity prices double on their watch whereas under our government electricity prices have been falling by over three per cent on average every year over the last three years. The only way you really understand what a Labor government will do is what they did last time they were in government.”
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