Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in the Committee today to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2010-2011 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2010-2011. While I am deeply concerned with a number of elements in the government’s program, sadly, time limits prevent me from outlining them all. However, firstly I would like to raise the issue of the government reducing by 25 per cent the funds available to the Export Market Development Grants scheme—a scheme designed to assist small and medium size businesses with their export development. This is being reduced from $200 million down to just $150 million—a $50 million reduction.

Outside our mining industry, our small and medium size exporters are struggling. We have a dollar which is now above parity with the US dollar, and many of our major export markets are in meltdown. Further, our small and medium size businesses face a government whose policies have had the effect of making small business smaller, with over 300,000 small business job losses since they came to government. Now is the time that we should be assisting our small and medium size business, but instead this government are doing the opposite, by cutting the funding from this important scheme.

The government like to talk about certainty, but how can we have certainty when the government continually change the rules to the Export Market Development Grants scheme? This year, when exporters are applying for a grant, they will receive an upfront payment but further payments under the scheme will only be paid at a rate of somewhere between 45 to 65cents in the dollar. I call on the government to reverse the cutbacks to the Export Market Development Grants scheme and to give our small and medium size exporters the certainty they need, especially when they are venturing out into difficult international markets.

Secondly, I would like to take this opportunity to focus on the issue of trust. On 16 August 2010, just days out from the last federal election, the Prime Minister stated—and I quote those infamous 11 words for which this Prime Minister will forever be remembered:

There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.

And let us not forget the Treasurer’s hand in this deception, with his equally infamous statement before the last election where he said: ‘What we reject is this hysterical allegation that somehow we are moving towards a carbon tax.’

Following the government’s shameless backflip on the carbon tax, last Friday the email in my office went into meltdown, with constituents claiming to have been hoodwinked and deceived by the Prime Minister and the Treasurer. People were saying that they had been conned and that they could no longer believe a word that comes out of the Prime Minister’s mouth. I would like to read out a letter that came from one constituent, and I quote:

Dear Mr Kelly,

I am sure you are being flooded by emails in relation to Ju-liar’s carbon tax. I would like to add my voice. I am appalled by her backflip, although not surprised. I am a single mother of two, one child with autism. This tax will simply add to the stress load of our household. This is a tax Australia cannot afford. The carers within our community are just holding their heads above water in coping with all the financial drains on their meagre allowances. This tax will add to their financial burden through increasing electricity prices, and many are already doing without heating and cooling just to cope. And the increase in petrol will definitely impact on their ability to take their son, daughter, husband or wife, mother or father to the many essential doctors’ appointments.

Ju-liar and her cohorts need to be held to account. The government must understand how this decision will impact on the average Aussie. The so-called rebate will not assist in any way, other than to put the country further into debt. To take from one hand and give a portion back with the other makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

People have asked me: ‘Why can’t some action be taken against the Prime Minister and the Treasurer against such misleading and deceptive conduct? Isn’t there a law against such a scam?’ We do have section 52 of the Trade Practices Act—now renamed in an act of window dressing to the Competition and Consumer Act. This act provides a prohibition against conduct that is misleading or deceptive or is likely to mislead or deceive, but only if the conduct is first found to be in trade or commerce.

While it is arguable that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer are guilty of having engaged in conduct that is misleading or deceptive by tricking the public over the carbon tax, they do have a defence that the deception was not made in trade or commerce because it is clear that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer simply have not got a clue about what trade or commerce are.

Some of my constituents are being a bit harsh on the Prime Minister by calling her ‘Ju-liar’. Let us have a close look at these infamous 11 words to see if we can come up with a defence for our Prime Minister:

There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.

People could be mistaken for focusing on the first six words, ‘There will be no carbon tax’ but they should consider this statement in full:

There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.

I emphasis the words, ‘under the government I lead.’ Personally, I am aware of no government that this Prime Minister has ever led. Before this election this government was not led by the Prime Minister; it was led by a cabal of faceless men working hand-in-hand with the Sussex Street death squad. Then after the election, this government is also not led by the Prime Minister; it is led by the Greens. Senator Milne let the cat out of the bag only last week when she said of the carbon tax:

… it’s because of Greens in the balance of power that we’ve got it.

The inmates have taken over the asylum. The Greens are only just warming up. Only last week the New South Wales Greens through their candidate for the state seat of Marrickville, someone who in less than one month is likely to be sitting in the New South Wales state parliament, announced yet another stupid and dangerous plan that would damage the economy. This time it was a trade boycott of China—our No.1 export market.

This is how members of the other side should defend the indefensible. When members of the public remind them of the Prime Minister’s statement—‘There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead’—they can simply say there is no deception. The Prime Minister does not lead this government; this government is led by the Greens and the faceless men acting in concert.

However, we need to look at other statements by the Prime Minister and the Treasurer. No matter how they seek to spin it and no matter how they try to disguise one lie with another, it is crystal clear that they promised before the election that they would not introduce a carbon tax during this term. Irrespective of the merits of a carbon tax, this backflip raises a serious question about our democracy. If we have a Prime Minister and a Treasurer making a solemn promise before the election that they will not introduce a new tax and then even before the ink has dried on the election results they announce that this new tax will go ahead, that is nothing other than election fraud that undermines our democratic process.

If the Prime Minister and Treasurer now wish to introduce a carbon tax they must call a fresh election and put their arguments to the voters for them to decide. By failing to do so, they destroy not only their own credibility but also the credibility of the entire parliament. This parliament cannot continue when the public can no longer trust a single word that comes out of the Prime Minister’s or the Treasurer’s mouth. In short, we have a situation where if the Prime Minister or the Treasurer told you it was raining you would want to go outside to check for yourself.

As for the carbon tax now being peddled by the Green and Labor alliance, let us first hope that they can be honest enough to call it what it is. The use of the words ‘carbon pollution’ subconsciously creates a false image of grit and black soot. What the carbon tax is really about is carbon dioxide—that clear and odourless gas that makes plants grow and makes up less than 0.0004 of one per cent of the volume of our atmosphere. Of that small amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, only 2.75 per cent is of man-made origin. At least 97 per cent comes from other natural sources.

Like you, Mr Deputy Speaker Murphy, I believe in climate change. History shows us that climate change has been occurring for millions of years and it continues today. Even if we went back to living in mud huts and if we gave away everything we have in our modern society, there would still be climate change tomorrow. The rationale for this tax is to do something—to do something about climate change. It is based on the theory that increases in CO2 emissions cause dangerous global warming. If we accept this theory as truth, and if the government is going to introduce this new tax, a new tax on carbon dioxide, the government must clearly explain, firstly, what reduction in global temperature will be produced by Australia cutting its carbon dioxide emissions by 2050; and, secondly, what extra costs—such as increased electricity prices, increased transport costs and increased food prices—will be incurred annually by a typical Australian family of four.

In answering the first question, the scientists have done the calculations to determine what reduction in global temperature would be produced by Australia cutting its carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent by 2050. A 20 per cent cut by 2050 is an average cut of 10 per cent between now and then. It is estimated that carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere by 2050 will increase to 506 parts per million by volume. From that, we deduct today’s concentration of 390 parts. So humankind might add, in the next 40 years, 116 parts per million, for which Australia’s contribution would be 1.5 per cent. So the CO2 concentration increase forestalled by 40 years would be 10 per cent of 1.5 per cent of that 116 parts per million, which would be 0.174 parts per million. That is how much this carbon tax would save. The scientists have calculated—even being charitable and taking in the high end of the UN’s estimates of the dangers of global warming—that in 40 years time, by the year 2050, this carbon tax would have the effect of avoiding global warming of 0.001 degrees.

Now we need to look at the costs to get this minute saving in warming—which is probably too small even for our instruments to measure. This planned carbon tax is deliberately intended to hurt every Australian. It is a direct assault on the living standards of every Australian. The New South Wales government—the government for now, anyway—has admitted that a carbon tax will result in a 25 per cent increase in electricity prices. The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal backs this admission, explaining that a carbon price will increase the cost of living by 26 per cent above the expected increase over the next three years. In the first year alone, the Labor-Greens carbon tax will add at least $300 to electricity bills across our communities. It will feed into the price of everything, forever, and it will go up every year. Not even fresh food or medical or hospital services will be exempt.

The other big lie about the carbon tax is that, unless we introduce it, Australia is at risk of falling behind the rest of the world. But, knowing that China, India and the USA are not going to implement a carbon tax, it is simply a destructive absurdity for Australia to introduce it. If we penalise ourselves with this absurd tax when it is not implemented in the other major economies around the world, it will simply burden our industries with higher costs, it will increase the costs of moving goods around the nation, and it will put us at a competitive disadvantage. In fact, we will be putting ourselves far behind the rest of the world. It will come at a great cost to the economy and a great cost to Australian jobs. The highly respected economist Terry McCrann has described this carbon tax as ‘a national suicide pledge’.

The Australian business community—indeed, the Australian people—need certainty about this carbon tax. They need to hear that the government will not introduce it. This destructive and utterly pointless tax should be abandoned as it has been elsewhere in the world. The Australian business community and the Australian people in general will have certainty only when this deceptive and misleading government is removed from office.

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