The Housing Industry Association (HIA) has stepped up its criticism of the Government's proposed price on carbon emissions.
While details are yet to be released, the HIA says 'the significant negative impact of a carbon tax on new housing and Australian jobs is clear'.
Among the concerns are that compensation measures for the tens of thousands of small medium and larger trade exposed manufacturers have to date been off the agenda. Also that building materials and products will go up in price, or be sourced from overseas.
“It is inevitable that jobs in Australia’s residential building sector and building product manufacturing sector will be lost under a carbon tax,” said HIA Chief Executive — Association, Graham Wolfe yesterday.
“The Federal Government’s intentions are clear — make businesses pay for the carbon emissions they produce,” he said. “What we don’t yet know is how much”.
“This means that Australian manufacturing will pay through both a carbon tax and higher input costs — electricity, gas and fuel prices,” he added.
“Details on the Government’s compensation arrangements for emissions-intensive trade-exposed operations are at best sketchy, while compensation measures for the tens of thousands of small medium and larger trade exposed manufacturers have to date been off the agenda,” said Wolfe.
“A carbon tax will inevitably mean a less competitive manufacturing sector against imports from non-CO2 taxing countries. Today the Federal Government acknowledged Australia’s relatively low-emission coal sector, but to date it has not correspondingly weighed up the impact of losing Australian manufacturing and processing operations to offshore, where carbon emissions are higher,” said Wolfe.
“If production goes offshore, so too will Australian jobs,” he stressed.
“Building materials and products will go up in price, or be sourced from overseas — or both,” Mr Wolfe said.
The cost of an average new home, the HIA estimates will increase by over $6,000 under a $20 per tonne CO2-e price, less the yet to be confirmed compensation measures, which are estimated to lower the additional cost by less than 15 per cent.
A spokesperson for the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency Greg Combet, responded that the HIA runs two contradictory arguments to misinform the public and oppose action on climate change.
“It claims the carbon cost of building a new house will be passed on to consumer,” they said.
“But it also claims manufacturers who make the materials used for building a new house are “trade-exposed” and therefore unable to pass on those costs and will shed jobs.
“The truth is that the government is considering generous assistance to trade-exposed emissions-intensive industries which will shield them from the full carbon price and support jobs and competitiveness.
CSIRO estimates of the embodied energy in a new house show over half comes from cement, aluminium, steel, copper, glass and plastics.
“All of these products qualified for 94.5 per cent assistance, or shielding, from the carbon price under the former Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme,” the spokesperson said.
“A few weeks ago, when the HIA first published its estimate of a $6000 cost impact on a typical house, they completely ignored this and assumed there would be zero shielding or assistance for companies which make building materials.
“After the government pointed out this obvious error, the HIA has gone back to the drawing board and now says the shielding will only lower its cost estimate by 15 per cent.
“But with more than half the embodied energy in a house shielded from 94.5 per cent of the cost of a carbon price their arithmetic still doesn’t stack up either.”
