Trouble looms for industry

By Nicole Williams
DANDENONG’S industrial sector could be in trouble if the Federal Government’s carbon tax is introduced.
That is the message from Shadow Minister for Industry, Innovation Science and Research Sophie Mirabella at Corex Plastics’ Dandenong factory last week.
“This is a very important region for manufacturing in Victoria and Australia and the carbon tax is going to have a devastating impact,” Ms Mirabella said.
She toured the factory with Manager of the Opposition Business in the Senate Mitch Fifield and Corex Plastics managing director Simon Whiteley.
“Today, here at Corex, we’ve seen a terrific operation that is very environmentally friendly,” Ms Mirabella said.
“We’ve got a very successful, very innovative, very green business that is going to have its costs increase unfairly.”
Corex Plastics uses recycled material to make packaging products and BlueScope Steel is a major customer.
Ms Mirabella said the carbon tax will likely send BlueScope Steel offshore which will impact Corex.
”We’re looking at the export of jobs, the export of manufacturing, to countries that will produce more carbon than we ever did in those same products,” she said.
“We’ll end up, not only with job losses and businesses going off shore but with more carbon in the air. It’s a lose, lose, lose.”
Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Senator Kim Carr said Australia is not acting alone and many countries are implementing policies to assist in transitioning their economies to a low carbon future.
“The Prime Minister has stated that she doesn’t want jobs in emissions-intensive trade exposed industries to go overseas and she doesn’t want the emissions that come with those jobs to go overseas either because that would only compound the world’s carbon problems,” Senator Carr said.
Mr Fifield said the tax may be devastating for businesses like Corex.
“The scary thing for a business like Corex is, you’re talking about literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of additional cost and a lot of businesses just can’t absorb any increase of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year,” Mr Fifield said.
“Whether the impact of putting a price on carbon is positive or negative along the supply chain will depend on each company and their ability to capitalise on the changed business environment,” Senator Carr said.