The Electrical Trades Union (ET) has criticised the Productivity Commission’s latest Trade and Assistance Review, saying it completely overlooks the social cost of inaction on climate change, by considering only the market price of carbon rather than the broader cost of communities being devastated by economic collapse or natural disasters.
ETU National Secretary, Michael Wright, said the Productivity Commission was not up to the task of providing useful advice to government on energy transition.
“The Commission’s claim that it is too costly to preference the development of domestic industry over imports is completely at odds with contemporary reality and recent experience.
“These are no ordinary economic times, Australia and the world are going through an industrial revolution as we fundamentally restructure how our societies are powered. Yet the Commission seem to think that it’s just business as usual.
“Revitalising Australian manufacturing will build clean energy supply chains and deliver much broader social and economic benefits than the simple cost of the carbon abated.
“It’s almost like the Productivity Commission completely missed the COVID pandemic, where Australia was left completely exposed without masks, gowns and gloves, because we had gutted our manufacturing industry in the name of economic orthodoxy.
“Australia’s resilience, diversity, and security all depend on us having robust supply chains and industrial capacity to respond to a warmer, more uncertain world.
“It is farcical for the Commission to suggest the Safeguard Mechanism unfairly benefits companies that emit less than 100,000 tonnes of carbon per year. The entire point of the Safeguard Mechanism is to provide a pathway for high emitting facilities to lower their emissions.
“And when the commission suggests it is unfair to target climate adaptation investments at specific sectors or regions you have to wonder if this report is actually satire.
“Is the Commission seriously suggesting that the lottery of the postcode or industry you started in decades ago, means you should shoulder the cost of a global energy transition? The Commission would see the continuing hollowing out of our regions all for the sake of a neater spreadsheet.
