Back in 2009 the ACA commissioned modelling from economic consultancy ACIL Tasman, which predicted wide-ranging fallout from the failed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
ACIL is again doing modelling based on the emerging plans to tax carbon emissions.
“That will demonstrate impacts on actual mines in terms of EBITDA and whether they are above water or below water,” Hillman told ILN.
“You got to say with higher coal prices, it’s probably not going to be too bad.
“More importantly, we are looking at impacts of the proposal on future mine investments.
“Because the story we are getting from companies is that this proposal would knock net present values by 30 to 40 per cent, and some of these investment decisions won’t go ahead.”
To fight the CPRS, the ACA ran a successful advertising campaign and established the website cutemissionsnotjobs.com.
Hillman does not think a campaign is “something we will have to consider” at this stage.
“We don’t like doing these campaigns, it’s not our business, but hopefully the government will listen to us, and we will be able to get things changed for the better for coal and also for jobs in coal mining regions.”
Senior mining figures from BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Xstrata, Anglo American Coal, Centennial Coal and Peabody Energy have only had their first round of discussions with Climate Change Minister Greg Combet but there is only so much time for diplomacy.
“There is a way to go with this process,” Hillman said.
“Ultimately, I think people expect the government to be putting its proposal on the table by late June so we don’t have a lot of time.”
Cracks are already appearing in the fragile government alliance of the Labor party, the Greens and independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor.
Union leaders are worried about the carbon tax impact to manufacturing sectors, especially steelmaking.
Mine Life senior resources analyst Gavin Wendt said it was highly unlikely that Labor would win the next election if there was a vote on the carbon tax.
On the chances that Labor members might revolt against the party line on the issue, Wendt said they were “pretty high”
“It really is, they will be very concerned about the next election too.”
