As the political slanging match surrounding the carbon tax continues, the potential impacts on the building industry are being wrestled over.
An event earlier this week shows the opposition leader Tony Abbott and Climate Change Minster Greg Combet competing for industry support.
Abbott visited FAW Building Supplies in the Canberra earlier this week, where he claimed the cost of the Australian-made raw materials the company used would rise under a carbon price.
The Liberal leader said this would either push up house prices or see FAW switch to cheaper imported products.
“Nearly all of this [raw materials] uses vast quantities of energy in its production. The steel, the plastic, the cement, the aluminium are all very energy intensive. All are going to increase very significantly under a carbon tax,” he said.
However Combet labeled this a continuation of Abbott’s “mobile scare campaign” in which he is “totally wrong”, because each of the products he listed — steel, cement, plastics and aluminium — will be provided with assistance under the carbon price mechanism.
Under the former Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, these sectors would have qualified for between 66 per cent and 94.5 per cent shielding from the carbon price.
Combet said “Mr Abbott should be ashamed for frightening companies like FAW Building Supplies by making unfounded and inaccurate claims.”
Image: australianclimatemadness.com
