Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and COAG and Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader on Emissions Trading Design) Share this | Hansard source

I want to clarify the position of the opposition on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Amendment (Household Assistance) Bill 2009. Of particular concern is the need for a bill of this nature being put forward. One of the major design flaws of the scheme that is currently being voted upon in the House today is that it does involve massive churn and recycling of moneys back through the community. After one year of a $10 set price—so the first year subsequent to that—in the order of $13 billion will be collected as revenue by the government, which will result in something I think the community has been kept in the dark over; that is, electricity prices are likely to increase in the order of 30 to 40 per cent. The level of tax—and this scheme is effectively a tax—will in fact be equivalent to an increase in the GST from 10 to 12½ per cent. This will flow, like a GST, through every product and service in the community.

These are the sorts of issues that need to be on the table. People need to be informed about the consequences of the design of this scheme. It is designed, I think, with a revenue objective very much in mind, maximising the revenue to the government. The scheme, because of its design, will lead to a need for certain elements of the community to be compensated. That will involve massive administration and that will involve millions of cheques again being sent to individual Australians every year. This government is addicted to sending cheques, and you can see there are political reasons that sit behind that, not good policy reasons. If this scheme were working in tandem with the schemes of other countries around the world, the impact would not be anywhere near as severe and the requirement for compensation would not be anywhere near as severe. The issue of churn and recycling in the community and the cost of administration associated with that all amounts to poor policy and for that reason we are opposed to this bill.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

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