olde.sault wrote on Jan 11^th, 2012 at 6:52am:

culldav wrote on Jan 11^th, 2012 at 12:44pm:


Australia has a lot of problems, water is rationed while rainwater rushes into the sea taking homes and motor vehicles along the way (Q-land floods).

People are dying on roads because the roads are not wide enough for today's volume of traffic

and birthrate is encouraged, migrants let in by the boatload when our industries are disappearing overseas.

In the meantime we are involved in saving whales from the Japs and worrying over gay marriage.

What about priorities?

Have been asking this question for ages, and will still ask it.  Whats the REAL unemployment number?.   

Well here is another 250 jobs going.      

Two aluminium smelters in the Hunter Valley are set to axe 250 jobs.

Norwegian aluminium giant Norsk Hydro is blaming the high Australian dollar for plans to cut production at its Kurri Kurri smelter, with the loss of about 150 jobs.

The company says the strength of Australia's currency relative to the US dollar combined with low metal prices has hurt the company

Richard Downie from the Australian Workers Union says he has also been told Tomago Aluminium's much larger smelter will cut 100 jobs.   

"At this stage I'm not clear on when that will occur, but the clear difference here is that Tomago are going to maintain their current production," he said.

Mr Downie says the jobs lost at Kurri Kurri come on top of 40 positions cut by Norsk Hydro before Christmas.   

He says he believes the latest round of cuts will come swiftly as the company seeks to recoup substantial losses.

The smelter has also been struggling to secure a new electricity contract after Labor's former New South Wale treasurer Eric Roozendaal scrapped a deal the company had negotiated with Delta Electricity.

Norsk Hydro says it will continue to stay in close dialogue with all affected stakeholders, including employees, unions and the local community.

The ABC understands the company is looking to shut down one of its three production lines.

The state MP for Cessnock, Labor's Clayton Barr, says the region is facing one of its darkest periods.

"This will hit and we also talk about the flow-on effect impacting on potentially five, six or seven or eight other jobs," Mr Barr said.

"So if we are talking about 150 jobs directly from the plant. We could be talking about a roll-on effect in terms of trucking contracts, in terms of hairdressers, in terms of hamburger joints, in terms of even the port."   

The Liberal MP for the federal seat of Paterson, Bob Baldwin, says more jobs will go because of the carbon tax.

"The Coalition has been very aware of how finely balanced the jobs in the aluminium industry have been," he said.

"This is very disappointing news, but I fear it is only the beginning because when this carbon tax is introduced on the first of July it will increase the costs for aluminium manufacturers and therefore we will see more job losses."

Why would anyone want low paid unskilled jobs in this country?    Not everyone is high skilled are they?.   

Quote:


a lot more then they will tell you,

my guess is about double the quoted.

Lobo wrote on Jan 11^th, 2012 at 6:30pm:


Not much, as most of the companies that will be effected by the carbon tax will just pass the costs on.

but what the carbon tax will do over time is have an inflationary effect, driving up the cost of living, thus driving up wages thus making industry less competitive with other destination, eg the USA.

there are already companies around looking to move their production to the USA as it is starting to become an attractive destination for industry again.