Govt committee confirms that the carbon tax will hit regional Australia hardest
When you go out to play a game of cricket it’s always best to know what the wicket is like before you begin playing shots. After seeing Craig Emerson on the carbon tax wicket yesterday, the Labor Party’s game is self-evident. They think that the carbon tax is a joke, and they believe that the effects on regional Australia are to be dismissed as irrelevant.
However, this is not the view of a report released by the Latrobe Transition Committee which finds that plans to introduce a carbon tax and to shut down much of Australia’s brown coal production is going to have a disastrous impact on regional Australia.
Regional Australia was always going to be hit hardest by the carbon tax because that is where most of Australia’s power generation and mining industries are. These sectors generate the highest wages in Australia. The Latrobe valley should be a powerhouse because of that, but, instead, the government wants to shut it down.
There is no one dancing in the streets of Moe or Morwell. Instead of singing and dancing at Parliament House, Craig Emerson should take his show on the road. I am sure the people of Newcastle, Wollongong, Latrobe and Whyalla can’t wait for his performance to lift their spirits.
On Saturday night I stayed awake to see Sunday morning come in. Quite obviously, there was no change to the climate, but what I knew from that point forward was that a tax had been introduced to make things dearer so I bought less of them. I believe this is the first time that the government has brought about a policy whose modus operandi is to make the Australian people poorer, because poor people can’t buy as much, and that’s ultimately the objective.
The government’s own report finds that:
… main challenge ahead for the Latrobe Valley is to absorb its displaced power sector workers into its future labour market and replace lost investment in the region through growing and diversifying its economy. The report’s findings indicate that without assistance from governments, the power generation sector workforce will experience difficulty securing similar employment within the region.
The only reason it is facing those displaced workers is because the government is planning to spend $2 billion to shut down power stations.
It is the philosophy of the modern Labor Party, it is open, shut it, if it is making money, tax it.
