http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/chriskenny/index.phpFor...

http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/chriskenny/index.php

For almost a year now there has been an unwillingness to confront the impact of the carbon tax on jobs. Every time we have seen job losses in manufacturing industries or announcements that new projects are not proceeding, there has been a desperate attempt by government, supported by many in the media, to talk down the impact of the carbon tax.
The political imperative for this is obvious; the government doesn’t want to be seen to damage the economy. Besides, one of the most powerful unionists in the nation, the AWU national secretary Paul Howes, was on the record saying his support for the carbon tax was reluctant and would disappear if it took just one job.
Well Paul, now might be the time to reconsider your carbon tax position. Because after jobs cuts and a fresh announcement about having to look at pay cuts or more job cuts to stay afloat, General Motors Holden have finally declared what has been obvious to anyone prepared to look at the situation rationally – the carbon tax is one of the contributing factors. Energy intensive industries are hit hard, obviously enough, by increases in energy costs. We are lucky that unemployment, overall, is still very low, especially by international standards.
Increasing energy costs was always going to hurt some parts of the economy. Small business, in particular, is feeling the pinch because it gets no compensation. Manufacturing industries are probably being hit harder by the high dollar (despite recent easing) but still have to wear the added burden of higher energy costs.
The denial we have seen from the government and its barrackers has been silly. Many companies have played along with it because they don’t like to put themselves in the middle of a political argument. For instance, the carbon tax, while not a major factor, was an extra cost on the proposed expansion of the Olympic Dam mine which was scrapped last year (it was going to use millions of litres of diesel as earthmoving equipment spent years shifting overburden). As steel and aluminium plants in Victoria have shed jobs, Ford has announced its intention to close and food processing plants have scaled back, higher energy costs have been a part of the equation.
This is all part of the plan. The whole idea of the carbon tax is to shift jobs and investment from so-called dirty jobs to so-called clean jobs. So these job losses are a deliberate outcome of government policy. Now all we have to do is create all those new jobs making windmills and solar panels. But I think most of that is happening in China, where they can build them cheaper because they don’t have a carbon tax. How clever are we?