Annika conveniently forgets to mention the wages blow-outs under the unFair Work legislation, where productivity has declined while labour costs have increased, and lazy union bums have set new records for bludging. Whoops.

How true Scott, I could not agree more. Sitting on your backside all day and whinging about all sorts of things is not being productive,

there are a number of reasons these layoffs are happening and if you dont think the carbon tax is a threat then why did rio tinto put its aussie aluminium assets up for sale less than one week after the government got the carbon tax through parliament

Sounds like an average day at that round building on King St, eh mate?

As we assume that GFC hasn't touched Down Under, I believe it has already arrived, caught us unprepared. Manufacturers are shutting down one by one, pushing up unemployment. That will have domino effect; we'll soon see more job losses in banking, retail industry. RBA should reduce interest rate to devalue Aus$. Our economy relies on export revenues, including tourism, education. Foreign students who bring $6.5billion to NSW economy are disappearing. Plants, operating at high cost with outdated technology aren't competitive.Government should increase investments to upgrade infrastructure, to create jobs.

Good on you Scott not everyone is a megaworker like you prepared to do so for a pittence.

Hi Annika, i take your point about global forces resulting in job losses in the aluminium industry. It is folley though not to dent the elephant in the room. The CT will have a major impact on industry thatbwill achieve no reduction in carbon emmissions. Consider $23/ tonn CT @ .6kg/kwhr/tonn CO2. Between Kurri and Tomago these plants take up 18pc of the states electricity. I put the greenies at the centre of this inane response to a number of issues that will achieve nothing. For example solar panels, removal of storage hot water systems, smart meters.

And what's so special about our CO2 - is it 3 times better than the stuff in Europe? Ours is going for $23 per tonne, theirs for $7 or thereabouts at the moment.....

@eel, mega size multinational companies know what's going on in the parliament more than what we get to know, much earlier than we read in newspapers.

I think that this government should consider bringing forward major infrastructure projects to enable the manufacturing industry to at least retain the workforce and to maintain cash flow. That is if this goverment has a plan? Let's see what the world's greatest treasurer is capable of. Maybe the VFT would be a good one to start with.