The New South Wales Premier Barry O’Farrell has succumbed to Tony Abbott’s unprincipled tactics of misrepresenting the Federal Government’s carbon price policy in a bid to frighten the people of NSW.

Mr O’Farrell is basing his claims of adverse impacts in the Hunter and Illawarra regions on an old report commissioned by electricity generators during the debate about the previous Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme policy.

This modelling is out of date and does not reflect the Gillard Government’s carbon price framework and therefore anyone using it is engaged in a dishonest scare campaign for cynical political purposes.

This report contains numerous instances where the results have been presented in a selective and inaccurate manner for maximum scare impact.

For a start, by releasing results on a regional level, Frontier Economics ignored the fact that the model used does not produce reliable results at this level. Treasury has repeatedly stated that regional results based on this model are not reliable.

Then the quoted impact of carbon pricing on employment in the Hunter, 13,440 job losses, is not jobs losses at all.

In fact the Frontier modelling showed employment would still grow in the Hunter but this expansion in employment numbers to 2020 would be 13,440 less with the CPRS than without the CPRS.

Likewise, the quoted impact of carbon pricing on employment in the Illawarra, 800 job losses, is not job losses at all.

In fact Frontier predicted that employment would grow in the Illawarra but that the expansion in job numbers to 2020 would be 800 less with the CPRS than without the CPRS. That is, it predicts slightly slower employment growth, but still significant job growth.

Mr O’Farrell’s dodgy scare campaign also ignores the new jobs that will be created as a carbon price creates incentives for investment in new cleaner energy sources.

Finally, the carbon price modelled in the Frontier report is $46 in 2015. That is well above the price modelled by Treasury when they analysed the economic impact of the former Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

When it comes to the impact of the carbon price on regions like the Hunter and the Illawarra, the Government will provide assistance to industries like steel manufacturing and coal mining to support jobs, competitiveness and the transition to a low carbon economy.

This assistance will be designed to stop jobs from going overseas and is the subject of continuing discussion with industry.

The Government does not underestimate the competitive pressures faced by industries like steel-making from factors like the high dollar and the fallout from the global financial crisis and we will take these pressures into account as we develop our assistance measures.

If Mr Farrell wants to retain any credibility he should not blindly follow Mr Abbott whose scare campaign has been widely discredited.