Labor’s carbon tax is perversely about to make it harder to help the environment, Acting Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage Simon Birmingham said today.
Plastics recycling companies are warning they will have to cut hundreds of jobs or go broke due to soaring electricity costs.
The Gillard Government expects businesses to pass on costs to households but Kim Jones at Sydney plastics manufacturer and recycler Cromford, for example, has told The Daily Telegraph:
“I can’t pass on the higher energy costs because I am competing against imported products which have a significant advantage.”
Plastics and Chemicals Industries Association chief executive Margaret Donnan has told The Daily Telegraph that recyclers compete with Asia and the Middle East where there is little chance a carbon tax will be introduced:
“The Australian plastics industry is highly trade exposed, yet transitional industry assistance under the carbon tax offers only patchy compensation in the face of the world’s highest carbon price.”
“The plastics industry has today made clear that Labor’s carbon tax will work against recycling of plastics in Australia,” Senator Birmingham said today.
“Labor’s carbon tax is working against good environmental outcomes.
“Labor’s carbon tax will make recycling harder in Australia.
“Labor’s carbon tax means plastics will go to landfill but Julia Gillard doesn’t see a problem
“Labor has a terrible track record or ‘reverse Midas touch’ when it comes to environmental programs and policies so it should be no surprise that a toxic carbon tax supposedly designed to help the environment will actually make it harder to do so.”