While my choice in music is 60,70 80s rock, country and some jazz I found myself humming a different tune on seeing the headline.
Yes quite right, Shadow minister! still humming my song, * it had to be you*.
One ear on the question time in the back ground, I find it difficult to separate the negativity/fear mongering/junk, here in written form and there polluting the air ways, get fair dinkum mate.

The ageing Kurri Kurri smelter in the Hunter owned by
Norsk Hydro has been losing money for quite some time,
years in fact, and they've been letting people
go - little by little - for quite some time. Their
problems have been many. Just to name a few:

Part of their problem has been the NSW government's
refusal to give the company a long-term electricity
supply contract, and negotiations for a new contract
have been in limbo since 2010.

Also the weak aluminium prices - which have fallen 40%
from their peak of $3,300 per tonne to approx. $2,000
a tonne - don't help.

In other words what drives the current closures of these
antiquated smelters (this is not the only one) are the
current pressures leading to the current financial losses
that the companies have been incurring for some time.
Blaming the carbon tax is merely - politics,
and short-sightedness and of course
a continued weapon that the Opposition chooses to use on
the government (they have nothing else).

You can't keep doing things the same old-fashioned way -
and expect different results - when things have not been
working for quite some time. In order to be competitive-
you have to look towards innovation - and find what will
work. Blaming the carbon tax - won't solve anything to
an already crumbling industry.

SM, I actually happen to agree with you that the carbon tax will
be a nail in the coffin of many businesses. But its a number of
nails which eventually sink businesses. You won't get me arguing
for the carbon tax. Its going to cost the average dairy farmer
around 5 Grand, let alone what it will cost meat producers. That
does not help their industries stay competitive.

The point I was making, if you read the article, was that this
particular plant was knackered without the carbon tax anyhow and
was old technology. It was losing money hand over fist anyhow,
so would have closed one way or another. Tony claiming that these
are the first victims of the carbon tax is pure politics and not
based on fact.

The thing is, these aluminium smelters originally set up, because
they could buy cheap electricity in Australia, based on our coal
reserves. Those days are over.

Yabby said;
Abbott is
shin kicker, not the sort of leader that Australia needs.

You are usually better than that.
The oppositions job is to kick shins.
That has nothing to do whether he will be a good PM or not.
I suspect that he will be quite a reasonable PM, perhaps not better
than the best we have ever had but I don't go along with the
disconnected blah blah that we have been subject to over the last
couple of years. many on here make statements that he is this that
and the other without more than being opposed to back it up.

You kidding me? There's THOUSANDS of jobs going every day in every job type. People aren't spending money.

*The oppositions job is to kick shins.
That has nothing to do whether he will be a good PM or not*.

Not so, Bazz. The job of the opposition is to show wisdom
and good judgement. We can evaluate their potential, by
their statements. I am on the record on OLO, for being about
policies, not people and I have listed some of those policies.

Just yesterday, Tony was on tv telling school kids that he had
learnt latin at school. So did I and it was the biggest waste
of time that I can imagine. Yet Tony is out there promoting
more languages to be taught at schools, wasting more time and
putting many kids off school completely. So it is judgement
that I question. It needs more to be a great PM, then kicking shins.