Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on theCarbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and related bills and again at the outset state my opposition to the legislation. A lot has changed, to say the least, since the last time we spoke on this legislation. It is important to note that as of last week Australian families do have a very clear choice—a very clear choice between the Labor government’s massive new tax on everything, which no-one understands, and our plan for direct action with practical environmental measures and no new tax, and it is something that people can actually understand.

I am not sure whether it is a factor of the government being too arrogant or too lazy, but it has failed to explain to the Australian public exactly what it is trying to achieve with its massively complex Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. In my electorate, the minister for climate change has been invited on many occasions to come to the Latrobe Valley. The local newspaper ran quite a campaign encouraging the minister to come to the Latrobe Valley and to explain the CPRS to the power workers and to the families in my electorate and be honest with them about the costs of the scheme being proposed by the government. I know I have personally extended an invitation to the community cabinet. In December of 2008 I wrote to the Prime Minister and offered him the opportunity to come to Gippsland, to visit my region and to run through a range of issues. Most obviously the emissions trading scheme was to the forefront of the minds of most people in the electorate.

I understand that community cabinet has many demands in an election year—they are probably too busy barnstorming the Labor marginals and the Liberal target seats in the suburbs to come out to Gippsland, but if they do need to make up their quota of conservative seats they are very welcome to come to Gippsland at some stage. I will certainly make them feel welcome. I think the minister for agriculture, the minister for industry and resources and the parliamentary secretary for bushfire reconstruction can all attest that I have been quite an amenable host when they have had the opportunity to come to Gippsland. I would be happy to put the kettle on for the community cabinet; if they cannot all make it at once, that is fine. I think that the minister for climate change in particular really needs to take the time to come to Gippsland and the Latrobe Valley and explain to my community what the costs of this massive new tax will be.

I said that the people of Gippsland would obviously treat the cabinet with a great deal of respect. They are a respectful community in Gippsland; they are not going to be lining up to cause any scenes. But I can assure you that the government should be showing the people of Gippsland just as much respect. It is ignoring the very real concerns of families across Gippsland at its peril. If the government has nothing to hide, come to Latrobe Valley and tell the truth about the impact this massive new tax will have on jobs in regional areas like mine.

In the absence of a visit from the minister to explain the emissions trading scheme, we have to rely on other sources of information. On the specific issue of jobs I want to focus tonight on a report by an independent consulting firm called Buchan, which was commissioned on behalf of the Wellington Shire Council to undertake a study. The report is titled The carbon pollution reduction scheme impacts on Wellington shire. It is an interesting report because it highlights the significance of this fundamental restructuring of the Australian economy, and it further highlights the failure of the government to be honest with regional communities like mine. I have said before that the broader Gippsland impacts could be enormous if industries are disadvantaged as a result of the ETS from the obvious increase we are going to see in electricity prices, particularly for our dairy farmers, who will not be compensated, to the costs to food manufacturers in my region, to the oil and gas industry and to small businesses, who, again, will not be compensated for any increased costs under this scheme.

An Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry report found that rural and regional areas will be adversely affected, and it could lead to increased urbanisation across Australia. A New South Wales government report found that regional areas could have a 20 per cent decline in economic activity. Any of the reports that have come out have mentioned regional areas and, inevitably, have mentioned Gippsland/Latrobe Valley as a region that is most exposed to such a scheme.

The Buchan report that I referred to is specifically focused on Gippsland, and I will cut to the chase in terms of the impacts that have been uncovered in that report. Gippsland workers have direct exposure to five of the emissions intensive industries identified by Access Economics as being most exposed to the CPRS legislation. Naturally, brown coal and power generation are at the top of the list, along with natural gas, gas distribution and petroleum and coal products. It is recognised in the Buchan report that the impacts on these sectors under the no international trade scenario are greater because businesses are not able to buy carbon credits from lower emission businesses offshore. I will quote from the report:

Major impacts of the CPRS are experienced in a number of sectors, including electricity supply, oil and gas extraction and gas distribution. There are significant impacts on the electricity supply sector, both output and jobs, because most of Victoria’s generating capacity is brown coal fired in the Latrobe Valley.

The report goes on to produce a table which forecasts the difference in employment and output by 2025 compared to what would occur in the absence of a CPRS program. I quote again in reference to the three municipalities of Wellington Shire, East Gippsland Shire and Latrobe City:

In the case of the no-international-trade scenario, employment across the three areas will be down by almost 3,000 jobs in 2025 compared with a base case of no CPRS, and output would be $325 million lower.

That is alarming news for Gippslanders and it probably explains why none of the government ministers have come to Gippsland and Latrobe Valley to explain the impacts of this massive new tax.

Here we have an independent source predicting the impact on my electorate alone will be 2,893 fewer jobs by 2025. This flies in the face of every reassurance and every guarantee by the government. It probably explains to me and to the people of Gippsland why we are being ignored in this debate—why none of the ministers have bothered to come to our region. They know that there is going to be a major impact on regional communities, and Gippsland is going to be at the pointy end of it. It also flies in the face of every other effort being undertaken right now in our region to try to create jobs, to develop Gippsland and to provide opportunities for our young people as they go through the education system and perhaps take on a trade or go on to university or remain in our communities. We have been trying to promote Gippsland and Latrobe Valley as great places to live and work, and here we have the government with a massive new tax and an independent report finding that by 2025 the impact will be 2,893 fewer jobs in my community. Families in Gippsland have every reason to question the policy being put forward by the government and they have no reason whatsoever to trust the Prime Minister and a Labor government which is hiding information like this from our community.

If the forecast is not accurate—and I am not saying it is—I ask the minister to give me her predictions. If I am wrong I am happy to be corrected on this point. It is not a figure I have made up; it is a report by the Buchan Consulting group commissioned by the Wellington Shire Council. If they are wrong, come to Latrobe Valley and tell us where it is wrong. Come on down, any time at all. We welcome the minister in the Latrobe Valley to explain to us what will happen to the jobs in our region under the proposed CPRS legislation. There is no question that there will be impacts on key industries in my region, and I am concerned that it is going to hurt the job prospects of Gippsland families right now and also in the future.

The other issue that I have spoken about before when we have had the opportunity to debate this legislation is that of energy reliability in this brave new world that the Labor Party likes to talk about. Energy reliability, security of supply and access to cheap baseload energy have been the cornerstone of Victoria’s development. The Latrobe Valley has obviously been the centrepiece of that. The power industry in the Latrobe Valley is something that the community has quite rightly been very proud of for many decades. One of the great disappointments of this whole debate has been the way the brown-coal power generators have been vilified and, by association, the people of Latrobe Valley have been vilified in this debate. I think it is a source of great discomfort to people in my community that they have been portrayed as somehow being evil polluters dirtying the environment for the rest of Australia. It is something that the government has to take some of the blame for, in the sense that we had government propaganda campaigns running on TV in 2009 that were very much directed at the brown-coal power industry. Also, we have members of parliament scoring political points at the expense of people who have worked very hard and are very proud of their achievements on behalf of the broader Victorian economy.

Energy reliability and security of supply are critical to the future economic growth of our nation. The simple fact is that if our power generators in the Latrobe Valley are not financially viable under this government’s ETS we are in for one hell of a shock in terms of reliability of our power supply. It is a simple fact that our community has become dependent on a reliable supply of power. Our industries and our households are dependent on it. Yallourn Power Station management has indicated that it has reduced its maintenance load due to uncertainty about what the government intends to do in terms of its ETS legislation. When you have power stations reducing their maintenance programs it is only a matter of time before reliability of supply is affected. Other generators have expressed their concerns in the strongest possible way about their financial viability in the wake of this government’s massive new tax, if it ever gets through the parliament, which I sincerely hope it will not.

The government is prepared to inflict enormous economic pain on regional areas like Gippsland and the Latrobe Valley for very insignificant environmental gains. This is a Labor political strategy. It was a political strategy going into the last election; it is a political strategy coming into this next election. It is not an environment policy. Everything from the timing of the proposed legislation before the House prior to the Copenhagen summit last year to the comments of the Prime Minister and other ministers has been about trying to achieve some sort of political advantage on the back of community concerns over the forecast impacts of climate change. I believe the government has become so obsessed with its political strategy that it has turned its back on Australia’s national interest.

We had the Minister for Finance and Deregulation last week speaking about ‘frauds’ and ‘phoneys’ and describing our plan as ‘Regional Partnerships on steroids’. But he brushed over his massive tax on everything and the government’s repeated claims that it is going to take action to save the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu. The absurdity of the Prime Minister’s proposition, when he stands here day after day in question time telling us that his action, this CPRS, this massive new tax, is going to save the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu, deserves further examination.

We all accept that Australia emits just 1.4 per cent of total global emissions, and both sides of this chamber are committed to reducing that amount by five per cent. So we have a five per cent reduction target of 1.4 per cent of total global emissions. Now, even the most ardent believer of every climate change forecast, and every piece of climate change science, does not try to commit this con on the Australian public. There is no-one else out there saying that Australia reducing its emissions by five per cent—remembering, again, that we account for 1.4 per cent of the global total—is going to somehow solve the problem, is going to save Kakadu and the Great Barrier Reef. It is an outrageous con. It is part of the phoney campaign that this Prime Minister continually runs. It is a scare campaign with no substance whatsoever. It is about time that those opposite stood up to their Prime Minister and actually pointed out to him that he is the laughing stock of regional Australia when he comes out with these ridiculous claims. Cutting our emissions by five per cent, when our total contribution to global emissions is 1.4 per cent is sweet—

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