BLUESCOPE’S Managing Director Paul O'Malley and OneSteel’s CEO Geoff Plummer have united to present the Australian steel manufacturers' position on the Government's proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
The representatives spoke to the Senate Committee hearing in Melbourne on 22 April 2009.
Plummer told the committee that the companies supported the scheme’s objectives of reducing greenhouse emissions while maintaining the competitiveness of Australian emissions-intensive trade-exposed industries (EITEs).
However, Plummer says there is a clear danger that the proposed scheme will fail to meet the Government’s environmental and economic objectives, and instead severely disadvantage the Australian iron and steel industry for a potentially worse environmental outcome.
Plummer claims the proposed scheme would fundamentally alter competitiveness and the sustainability of the steel industry in Australia. It would result in carbon leakage to countries, many of which are without similar carbon reduction schemes which would lead to both the scheme’s environmental and economic policy objectives being invalidated.
O'Malley says that the groups could only support an emissions trading scheme if the system does not alter the international competitiveness of the Australian iron and steel industry.
O’Malley claims the system should be resigned to being affordable and sustainable. He says the scheme should only impose costs on Australian EITEs in tandem with, and not ahead of, our larger competitors.
The BlueScope representative claims the system would need to recognise the technological restraints on emissions abatement in steel making and take into account the current global economic crisis. He says the scheme must also minimise the risks to competitive, trade-exposed Australian manufacturing industry, investment and jobs as well as include appropriate transitional mechanisms.
Both firms believe that any emissions trading scheme should not be introduced before the design of the scheme is right, administrative arrangements are satisfactorily developed and the economy begins to recover so that companies can afford abatement expenditure.
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