The aluminium industry in Australia and greenhouse gas emissions

In an April 2010 column in the Australian, Gary Johns -- a former Labor government minister and subsequently on staff at the Institute of Public Affairs -- noted that a report by the Grattan Institute "noted that the worst polluters are aluminium smelters and that they are heavily subsidised."

"Further, at some point aluminium production is likely to move to "stranded", low-emission, relatively cheap, remote electricity sources in the Middle East, Canada and Iceland. Under the Rudd scheme the heavily subsidised Bell Bay, Kurri Kurri and Point Henry refineries would be under the gun because of the carbon price and subsidy phase-out. But simply removing existing subsidies would probably have been enough to cause the same changes as the now-shelved Rudd scheme. So why not go direct and start the changes? Such an approach would have let the electorate know the government believed what it said. A prime minster who believed in reducing Australia's emissions would continue to search for solutions. A prime minister who treated "the great moral issue of our time" as just another photo opportunity would, instead, clear the decks for a bread and circuses election," he wrote.

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