Two new reports and a bill before the Senate today all point to the huge jobs risk from the Rudd Government’s refusal to embrace the transformation to a green economy.
“Australians who voted in droves for the exciting potential of a jobs boom from meaningful action on climate change are starting to wonder why that promise vanished in a puff of smoke,” Australian Greens Deputy Leader, Senator Christine Milne, said.
• A Climate Institute and E3G Climate Competitiveness Report released this morning puts Australia towards the bottom of the G20 class in attracting investment into the future due to excessive corporate welfare for polluters and insufficient support for sunrise industries.
• A Greenpeace and Institute for Sustainable Futures report released today, Working for the Climate, demonstrates that more than 30,000 jobs would be created from a gross feed-in tariff for all forms of renewable energy. The Rudd Government is actively blocking the creation of those jobs by refusing to support Christine Milne’s Private Member’s Bill for a feed-in tariff which is being introduced into the House of Representatives and debated in the Senate today.
• The Orwellian Automotive Transformation Scheme Bill which is before the Senate today will essentially hand over some $3.35 billion to the car industry to keep doing exactly what it has been doing, losing competitiveness and ditching jobs by failing to clean up its act.
“The Rudd Government’s obsession with sandbagging jobs in the biggest polluting sectors of our economy is short-sighted in the extreme and bound to end in tears.
“Billions of dollars are being handed out to polluters under the pretence of protecting jobs, while sunrise industries which promise to create far more, higher quality jobs are left begging.
“The Australian community, particularly those looking for green jobs in engineering, architecture, manufacturing and much more, are entitled to start asking hard questions of the Rudd Government.
“The Government’s refusal to embrace a feed-in tariff for renewable energy and its Continue Polluting Regardless Scheme which locks in failure on the climate crisis and joined today by an Automotive Transformation Scheme which hands over billions of dollars to car manufacturers to keep doing what they are doing.
“I will be moving a Second Reading Amendment to the Automotive Transformation Scheme Bill to defer consideration until the Senate sees the final regulations, which will tell us what obligations car manufacturers will be under in order to receive this multi-billion dollar welfare.
“It is cruel to those thousands of Australians working in the car industry to keep subsidising their employers without requiring them to change their unsustainable business model.
“Australia can have a flourishing manufacturing and industry sector if we embrace the green economy. If we fail to do so, the outlook for jobs in this country is grim.”
Senator Christine Milne
