Audit needed on Green Jobs

Viv Forbes

A Statement by Mr Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition, Australia, 22 Aug 09.

The Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition, Mr Viv Forbes, today called for an audit by the Productivity Commission into PM Rudd’s Green Jobs Plan.

Forbes explains:

“Whenever politicians claim to create jobs, close examination usually finds that the jobs were created in another country and their policies have merely created more welfare recipients.

“Much of the tax funded subsidy money being thrown at “alternative energy” is creating jobs in China making the hardware. Then it employs a few short term people installing the stuff. In the end, the only real jobs created are repairing wind towers and cleaning dust off solar panels. Even these are not real jobs because the moment the government stops forcing electricity companies to use their expensive and unreliable green power, these jobs will also evaporate.

“Real jobs are those that produce unsubsidized goods or services that can be sold in open markets at a profit.

“Jobs that depend for their existence on government subsidies or mandates are not jobs, but welfare with fancy names. They live off taxes paid by real jobs.

“For example, spending $19 million of tax payers’ money on a mindless slaughter of wild camels “to save the environment” is green job creation. Harvesting camels in a sustainable industry is a real job.

The full article can be read here:

SOURCE

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