Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Of course when any worker loses their job around the country that is a very disturbing matter for them and their family. It puts a lot of pressure on. From the point of view of this government, all you will ever see us do is support working people who find themselves in that position. Indeed, we know how shattering it can be for someone to confront the circumstance of unemployment, and that is why we took the actions we did in the global financial crisis to keep Australians working and to keep them in jobs.

On the question of Penrice and the production of soda ash that the member asked about, I think it is important that we are accurate about what was putting pressure on this company, accurate about the impacts and also accurate about carbon pricing. So let us go through the facts, which I believe the members opposite ought to be interested in. The facts are these. Soda ash sells for around $340 per tonne. That is a fact. After assistance, the impact of the carbon price on a tonne of soda ash is around $1.20 a tonne. That is the fact. The impact of carbon pricing on soda ash production is similar to a 0.3c appreciation in the Australian dollar. As we all know, we have seen a 60 per cent appreciation in our currency over the last few years. So the pressures on this business are strongly impacted by the strength of the Australian dollar. It is also impacted by factors like lower international shipping costs, which are making imports more competitive.

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