Thousands of jobs to go unless gas price cut, union warns PM

AWU national secretary Daniel Walton has warned Anthony Albanese thousands of manufacturing jobs will be lost unless the government changes course on gas.

Daniel Walton told the Prime Minister ‘the path for action is clear and it is with you now’. Picture: John Feder

Australian Workers Union nat­ional secretary Daniel Walton has written to Anthony Albanese, warning that thousands of manufacturing jobs will be lost during Labor’s first term unless the government changes course on gas policy.

In the letter sent on Thursday, Mr Walton attached an urgent five-step plan aimed at providing immediate relief to manufacturers and households – including a demand for an energy “crisis summit” – that was broadly backed by industry.

“If the government does not act now, when closures occur it will not be able to say it was not warned or that its hands were tied,” Mr Walton said.

“The path for action is clear and it is with you now.”

The AWU plan includes imposing a cap on retail electricity prices enforced by the competition watchdog, changes to the industry’s voluntary code of conduct, the inclusion of a price trigger in the gas security mechanism, harsher action against gas exporters who game the system and the holding of an energy crisis summit.

Mr Walton also wrote to all federal Labor MPs saying the “measures attempted to date are having no meaningful effect”.

“It’s not fair, but the fact is if factories close and thousands of blue collar jobs are lost, then fingers will be squarely pointed at this federal government,” he said.

Manufacturing Australia chief executive Ben Eade threw his support behind the AWU push, saying the nation did not have a functioning east coast gas market.

“If we’re serious about solving this, the government and the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission should intervene any time the market is shorted and east coast prices exceed West Australian prices. Anything else is window dressing,” he said.

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said the energy crisis would cost “businesses and households tens of billions of dollars in higher electricity and gas bills over the next few years”.

“It would make sense for the federal government to bring together energy users, energy suppliers and other critical players to find a package of measures that blunts the worst of the crisis,” Mr Willox said.

Mr Walton has been a critic of the heads of agreement negotiated last month with east coast LNG exporters that Resources Minister Madeleine King said would shore up supply by providing an extra 157 petajoules of gas for the market.

Ms King said the agreement would mean there was no reason to pull the gas trigger, which directs exporters to meet domestic demand.

Mr Walton said the heads of agreement and the existing code of conduct were “thoroughly insufficient”.

“Just today I was speaking to a major manufacturer who told me that before the heads of ­agreement was announced, they were offered gas at an unaffordable $40 a gigajoule,” Mr Walton said. “After the heads of agreement was announced, they received a revised offer of $60 a giga­joule.”

“In reality there are very straightforward, well-defined steps that the federal government could take today.

“These steps would provide relief and save our manufacturing sector from mass closures.”

Opposition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien said Labor had “promised industry that they had a policy to drive prices down, yet their measures are delivering the polar opposite”.

“Every business closed and job lost due to skyrocketing power prices under this government will have the federal Labor Party to thank,” Mr O’Brien said.