Manufacturing Jobs in Mackay at risk to save one job, Gillard’s Job

30-March-2011

Ms Gillard is prepared to put 6,000 Mackay manufacturing jobs on the line as a result of the carbon tax, all to save one job, her own job.

Today Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry and Science, Sophie Mirabella, will be speaking with affected Mackay businesses with Federal Member for Dawson, George Christensen. One business they will visit will be Haynes Mechanical who service plant equipment for the mining and manufacturing sectors.

“This carbon tax will make electricity more expensive, it will tax fuel and increased costs will flow through the whole economy making every good and service more expensive,” Mrs Mirabella said.

“Mackay is a major driver of the Queensland economy. This tax will export our jobs offshore. By exporting our manufacturing to nations that don’t have the same environmental laws as we do, more emissions will be produced by making the same things we used to make.”

“It’s a lose - lose – lose – we lose jobs and businesses and more carbon will be created.”

Regional centres like Mackay will be hit particularly hard because adding 6.5 cents a litre to the already a high cost of freight and increasing electricity prices will hurt businesses in Mackay’s industrial zone of Paget.

There are more than 500 manufacturing businesses in Dawson, employing more than 6,000 people. 

“The carbon tax will export jobs and carbon offshore and will be bad for companies for like Haynes,” Mr Christensen said. “We are in the process of recovering from a global financial crisis and Mackay is leading the way. To risk manufacturing, industry, and jobs at this time with a carbon tax shows disregard for the needs of the local community and the Australian economy.”

Across the State, there are 153,000 Queenslanders employed full-time in manufacturing and tens of thousands of others who work in businesses supporting and servicing the manufacturing sector.