Combet Gets Caught Making Up Numbers

FURTHER light has been shed on how far apart the federal climate change minister is with his own department over critical advice provided to an Australian steelmaker.

Figures seen by BusinessDaily support claims that Bluescope Steel made after Greg Combet outlined the government’s climate change policy on Wednesday.

In his speech, Mr Combet said that a tonne of steel would be taxed at $2.60 based on a carbon price of $20 a tonne.

Yesterday, BusinessDaily was shown the figures the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency gave to Bluescope late last month.

Those numbers confirm that the tax would be equal to $8.23 a tonne using a carbon price of $26.10 a tonne — $6.10 above the figure Mr Combet projected in his speech to the National Press Club on Wednesday.

Bluescope calculates that at $8.23 a tonne it will have to pay the government more than $38 million next year.

In the first half of this year Bluescope racked up a $55 million loss.

Company officials also say that Mr Combet failed to explain in his speech that the 94.5 per cent of emissions assistance to be made available to steelmakers under the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme will apply only at the hot rolled stage of steel production.

Downstream products remain exempt from assistance under the government’s plans.

As a result Bluescope estimates that it will have 1,485,947 tonnes of unshielded emissions next financial year, which could cost the company as much as $38.78 million

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/