The Bowen Basin will suffer the full brunt of the Federal Government’s proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS), an Access Economics report has said.
The report, commissioned by state premiers and chief ministers through their Council for the Australian Federation (CAF), is the second in as many weeks to confirm a significant slowdown in future economic activity in the Mackay and Fitzroy statistical divisions with the imposition of a cost on carbon emissions.
According to Access Economics modelling forecast, anticipated employment growth in the Fitzroy region will be down 3.4% and economic output cut by 5.5% by 2025.
In Mackay, employment growth will fall 3.3% and economic output by 4.7%.
“As one of the nation’s most productive mining and minerals processing regions is dragged down, so does the income stream for the state government’s funding of essential services such as education and health,” Queensland Resources Council chief executive Michael Roche said.
“This report is also significant for putting to rest the myth that the inevitable slowdown in central Queensland can be offset by new, green jobs.
“These jobs are gone from central Queensland, not substituted, and leave local workers as prime candidates for long-term unemployment. Across Queensland, the cost of putting a price on carbon translates into 28,000 fewer jobs by 2020.”
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