The Federal Government must make a decision on whether increasing employment in Indonesia and China was more important than securing jobs in Gladstone and other Australian regions, Senator Sue Boyce, Senator for Queensland, said today.
“The Federal Government’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) will move jobs offshore to high-polluting countries and will cause greater harm to the environment.
“Australia is still going to use the same amount of cement and the same amount of metals. It is a question of the Federal Government keeping jobs and emissions at home or increasing both unemployment and global emissions by forcing manufacture offshore.
“Our regional competitors have far less strict environmental controls as well as lax workplace health and safety standards.
“The Coalition has argued that we shouldn’t be imposing the ETS on our trade exposed industries until there are similar schemes operating in competing countries.”
Senator Boyce was speaking after a tour of Gladstone’s Cement Australia plant and Rio Tinto’s Yarwun Aluminium operation.
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