Broadcast on Radio Print Handicap (RPH) Australia Segment 24 – 18 July 2012 EMMA JANE: Welcome again to Talking Clean Energy. BARRY: Today Climate Change Minister Greg Combet discusses the jobs and competitiveness program that is part of the federal government’s plan for a Clean Energy Future. MINISTER COMBET: A lot of people I know are concerned. There’s been a lot of concern raised in the community about the carbon price coming in. I think a lot of those concerns — I understand them — but they’re misplaced. They’ve been created by the nature of the political debate we’ve had. But one of the concerns is about job security. I just have to say for a moment, for those that maybe don’t know my background that well, I’ve spent most of my life as a trade union official representing working people and in designing an economic reform like a carbon price, I’ve made sure to the best of my capacity that the Labor government, of which I’m a part, is protecting people’s employment wherever we possibly can. There are some industries that are very exposed to international competition and that are also very high polluters — an industry like the steel industry, for example. And so a carbon price has a material impact on those businesses. What we’re doing to ensure that there’s continuing viability in those industries, that they can remain competitive and that employees can have the most job security they can, is that we’re in fact providing almost 95 per cent of the permits to pollute …
Video Rating: 0 / 5