Australia must invest in modernising ”vintage” industry infrastructure to cut emissions and be ready to meet a global greenhouse agreement by 2020, Federal Climate, Industry and Innovation Minister Greg Combet says.
”From 2020, all nations face binding obligations to reduce emissions and our major regional trading partners - in particular China and India - will expect us to deliver along with them,” Mr Combet told the National Press Club yesterday.
”We are, after all, the highest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases amongst developed economies. Anyone who thinks we can do nothing is kidding themselves.”
It was the minister’s first major public policy speech since taking over the embattled industry and innovation portfolio last November from Senator Kim Carr, but the majority of questions were not about setting a carbon floor price.
Instead, Mr Combet was grilled about the looming leadership challenge.
Mr Combet dismissed leadership speculation as ”a distraction to the work of government”, but said the issue must be resolved quickly.
” Enough is enough. I say it is time this matter is resolved,” he said.
In a speech outlining the need for Australia to prepare for the introduction of a carbon price within six months, Mr Combet stressed the need to support ”investments in capital, skills and innovation to improve competitiveness”.
Using Australia’s aluminium industry as an example, he said the last new smelter in Australia was commissioned 25 years ago.
”China commissioned four new smelters last year alone,” he said.
”The first aluminium smelters were built in Australia in the 1950s and the sector expanded in the 1980s and 1990s. Today it has an ageing capital stock.”
There were ”significant swathes of heavy industry and manufacturing where the capital stock is of immediate post-World War 2 vintage,” the minister said.
”Pockets of our modern economy have been starved of capital investment, leaving us with ageing technologies and inefficient energy supply and consumption.”
But a number of submissions to a current Senate inquiry into a national shortage of engineering skills warn Australia is rapidly losing the skills to design and build roads, bridges, stormwater drainage systems and manufacturing plants.
The Institute of Public Works Engineering Australia has flagged a shortfall of 28,000 civil engineering workers in road construction.
Roads Australia estimates skill shortages could cost $3.5 billion in delays to construction projects.
A private submission from a West Australian engineer raised concerns about a major industry project being stalled over safety concerns because ”there simply was not the engineering expertise involved in the project delivery” to ensure the plant could operate safely.
