A key report commissioned by the federal and Victorian governments into the future of the Latrobe Valley has found that, regardless of the impacts of a carbon price, the region faces long-term structural challenges across its key big-employing growth sectors such as health care and agriculture.
That should have been the lead for media reports on a new report released yesterday into the restructuring of the Latrobe Valley region. AAP, in a piece run in the Herald Sun under the headline “Call for action on Vic’s Latrobe Valley” got it pretty right. The Australian had, shall we say, a different take.
“Carbon tax ‘a threat to power jobs’, says report” screamed the headline. “Deep uncertainty among the Latrobe Valley power generators and potential sweeping cuts to the local economy and employment have been sheeted home to the new carbon pricing regime,” began John Ferguson’s article. On and on it went about the impact of a carbon price on power generation jobs.
The few people who will bother to read the report will find Ferguson’s article bears minimal relationship to it. For a start, the report makes the interesting point that electricity and coal mining, even combined, are only the sixth-biggest employer in the region. Health, retail, agriculture, construction and education all employ significantly more people in the region than coal and electricity, although that sector is just ahead of health care as the largest sector by output.
And the impact of the carbon price? “The introduction of a national carbon price will drive substantial change in the Latrobe Valley’s economy over the next decade and beyond,” the report concludes. But the committee overseeing the report “believes that regardless of the short-term uncertainty associated with the introduction of the Commonwealth government’s Clean Energy Future (CEF) policy including the Contract for Closure program, there will be major structural change in the Latrobe Valley’s power generation sector over the next decade and beyond.” It also notes that the region is still recovering from the Kennett government’s privatisation.
But wait — still recovering? How could that be? We’ll be coming up to 20 years since privatisation. Well, see, the impact of privatisation in the Latrobe Valley was massive. According to another report cited by the committee from 2011, employment in the utilities sector in the region fell from more than 8000 jobs in 1986 to less than 1800 in 2001. Full-time employment fell 9% in the region between 1994 and 2001. The current number of electricity sector employees in the Latrobe Valley is 1570, with another 1000 contractors. Even if a carbon price were to wipe out the entire electricity sector in the region in one go, it would have much less than half the impact of Jeff Kennett’s privatisation.
Which, needless to say, failed to attract such widespread concern about job losses among commentators.
The report recommends that, in order to ensure workers displaced by structural change, including the carbon price and possible closure of a generation facility, can move into growth sectors such as health and agriculture, skills and training should be a priority. As well, infrastructure investment should be better co-ordinated, private sector investment should be facilitated and the region’s “liveability” should be targeted.
For anyone who’s read regional development reports before, there’s very little that’s new. The Latrobe Valley is in the fortunate position of having growth industries already present — a lot of regional communities have to work out ways to lure growth industries into the area — which means the challenge is primarily of reskilling its workforce and ensuring investment continues to flow into the area. But let’s not allow any of that to sully a good anti-carbon price yarn.
33 thoughts on “Carbon price v privatisation — which is worse in the Latrobe?”
klewso
July 3, 2012 at 1:20 pmWasn’t The Oz campaigning to dob in Goldilocks to the RSPCA for animal cruelty?
Sharkie
July 3, 2012 at 1:26 pmDo nothing to assist the Latrobe Valley restructure their economy? Get slammed by The Australian.
Commission a sensible report to assist the Latrobe Valley restructure their economy? Get slammed by The Australian.
This sort of report is essential for good governance and yet it gets turned into a ridiculous anti-carbon tax article by the hopelessly partisan “quality” paper.
Does anyone here seriously believe Abbott would have an election winning lead without the support of Murdoch and the shameless shock jocks who just make s%it up with impunity?
wilful
July 3, 2012 at 1:34 pmOf course retraining and reskilling is going to be hampered somewhat by the massive loss of TAFE courses thanks to Bailleau’s recent cuts.
wilful
July 3, 2012 at 1:37 pmAlso, a small correction (not reading the report, maybe you’re just quoting it). the job losses were all form corporatisation, which happened before privatisation. The sale of the assets went through with already trimmed workforces.
You do kind of wonder what sort of a closed shop was operating when you can lose two thirds of your workforce yet still generate just as much product.
drovers cat
July 3, 2012 at 1:42 pmAnother example of why we need a media enquiry, if only for it to legislate so “opinion” is properly marked thus, and news is news …
Of course it could also legislate (for News Ltd) for items to be compulsorily but relevantly labelled “fantasy”, “laughable”, etc …
Microseris
July 3, 2012 at 1:54 pmPlenty of work available to rehabilitate the massive holes in the ground left by the mining companies in the Latrobe Valley when they find it is all uneconomic and pull up stumps. The question is who is going to pay?
I’m pretty sure it won’t be the miners who will have taken their profits and left the mess to us. You won’t see the Murdoch media whining about that..
Michael de Angelos
July 3, 2012 at 1:58 pmPrivatisation is one of the greatest scams foisted upon us by both parties.
Short term gain=long term misery.
Harry1951
July 3, 2012 at 2:14 pmRe Wilful: I worked in the Latrobe Valley power industry from 1969 until 2011 and I can confirm that most of the job losses occurred when the power industry was still public-owned (The SECV). Without doubt the industry was massively over- staffed from the top to the bottom. I believe both management and unions were complicit in poor work practices and over-staffing. At corporatisation most of the job losses were over. For too long the Valley has been too reliant on what I regard as an industry with a questionable future, based as it is on abundant and cheap brown coal. But the days of brown coal are probably numbered unless carbon capture and storage technology can remove CO2 at a cost which will not make brown coal fired power generation more expensive than say gas or emerging renewables. The valley economy needs assistance to further diversify, perhaps into renewables. It deserves assistance as it has been pivotal in Victoria’s economic development as a source of cheap power. The old SECV did do some good things: it was a good employer, trained a lot of tradespeople and technicians and gave work to people who quite honestly would not have found work elsewhere.
Jimmy
July 3, 2012 at 2:25 pmInteresting policy of using market forces to drive reform gets touted as a good thing despite massive job losses and long term negative effects and while the other which will have a minimal impact on such things gets canned.
And where are all the Kennett liberals now when Abbottt is backing govt interevention above market forces?
fractious
July 3, 2012 at 2:31 pmGreat piece Bernard, thank you. Thanks to Fatty O Barrell and his coalition (coagulation?) of clowns in Macquarie St getting into bed with the rednecks much of NSW’s power generation sector will be going through the same “restructuring” shortly. The result will be increasing prices and drastic job losses and fat profits for a few, while “services” drop in quality.
Wilful above beat me to it – it’s all very well reports recommending that “skills and training should be a priority. As well, infrastructure investment should be better co-ordinated, private sector investment should be facilitated…” etc etc. but what good will that do when Bailieu & co are cutting governmetn expenditure, sacking stafff and decimating TAFE and public education? It’s the same in NSW and Qld – so-called “conservative” governments – elected after significant failures of state Labor – who all know nothing about runnign the place and whose sole answer is to sack tens of thousands of government staff, many of whom valued their work and brought many years of experience and expertise to the task.
And of course the only thing the OO and Limited News and the usual loudmouths can do is bleat the “carbon tax baaad” mantra. This country really is pathetic.