Is This Harper's Plan for Athabasca?

The Australian government is moving to protect steelworkers' jobs against the impacts of its own carbon pricing regime at a cost of $36,000 per year per worker.

In a report to be released today, the institute finds the steel industry - under pressure from the high Australian dollar - will make a windfall per tonne of steel from carbon tax compensation over the first four years of the scheme.

The institute also finds the government's commitment of a large swathe of free permits, and a $300 million adjustment fund for steel under the carbon price, will cost it over $320,000 per worker from 2012 to 2020, or on average $36,000 a year.

 

So the idea seems to be that you levy carbon taxes on the major carbon emitters and then refund the tax as job-saving "compensation."   That sounds like the perfect deal for Big Oil in Athabasca.