The managing director of Brickworks, Lindsay Partridge, said Julia Gillard’s plans to introduce a price on carbon would make building products costs rise at a time when housing was ‘‘already unaffordable’’ and construction levels were low.
Mr Partridge said it had the potential to cause ‘‘long-term damage’’ to the housing and building products industries.
‘‘The end result will be an exodus of manufacturing industries and investment offshore, jobs will be lost, the cost of housing will increase and there will be no change to carbon emissions. The sooner the current plan is abandoned the better,’’ he said.
Brickworks is the largest brickmaker in Australia and owns the Austral brand.
The company today reported a seven per cent lift in first-half underlying net profit to $61 million. Including its share of profits from investment house Washington H. Soul Pattinson & Company, net profit increased 33 per cent to $117.1 million.
Mr Partridge said the result was solid, and achieved despite persistent delays to construction brought on by wet weather across Australia, including the Queensland floods and Cyclone Yasi in January.
He said he expected the recovery in the Queensland housing market to be slow as there was an over-supply of units in tourist areas and housing affordability compared to other eastern states was poor.
He said any demand for its products, driven by the rebuilding efforts in Queensland and Christchurch, was likely to take a year to flow through.
Brickworks declared an interim dividend of 13.5¢ a share.
