Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister we have now is not John Howard. The Prime Minister we have now certainly has not put the nation in a relaxed and comfortable mode. The Prime Minister we have now certainly has not presided over what all in the nation recognise as the Howard government’s era of golden opportunity, where people were optimistic about their future, secure about the opportunities to improve their circumstances, confident about prospects; they understood that a competent government had plans for the future and policies that would make a difference. This Prime Minister is no John Howard.

I can point to another Winston, Winston Churchill, and give you an insight into that great leader’s appreciation of just how wrong-headed this government’s approach is—where every problem needs a tax and somehow our living standards will be boosted by another tax. It was around 1903 that Churchill had something to say that should resonate right across the economy and right across our community. He said, ‘A nation that tries to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.’ That was Winston Churchill’s account of it and that is exactly the logic that we are now accepting from the government as its rationale for this carbon tax. This carbon dioxide tax is supposed to lift our prosperity. This carbon dioxide tax is supposed to create jobs. This carbon dioxide tax is supposed to advantage our businesses. This carbon dioxide tax is supposed to be of benefit to families. How wrong could this government be? All the evidence says it is inflationary, it is punishing, it is punitive, it builds, it cascades and it snowballs at every stage of activity. It is going to cost jobs, particularly in areas where energy matters, not just at the point at which people work but at every input that led to the point where they tried to create some wealth for the country.

You have seen data rolled out time and time again that the government cannot counter. You have heard them talk about 16 coalmines. The opposition pointed out that, according to ACIL Tasman, that will lose 10,000 jobs. These are not extremists. Everyone who criticises the government is now an extremist. Everyone who questions some of its assertions is now an extremist. I did not think ACIL Tasman were extremists. I did not think Concept Economics were extremists when they pointed out that 24,000 jobs are at risk because of this tax. I did not think Frontier Economics were extremists when they pointed out that 45,000 jobs in energy-intensive industries will go, under this carbon dioxide tax. And I have not heard people make the argument that the ordinary men and women out there trying to contest, day in and day out, in manufacturing are extremists.

I want to pay tribute to the manufacturers. They need to be world-class every day. Consider them the Olympians of our economy, where they have to compete with the world every day. What are the manufacturers saying? They are saying to me, ‘If it wasn’t for our innovation, our ability to automate and our opportunity to improve our productivity, we’d have a real problem competing with the globe.’ So they compete vigorously through their innovation, through the use of technology and through improved productivity. Now, when they have to compete harder than ever, what does this government plan to do?—make it as hard as it possibly can, by imposing a carbon dioxide tax which will be absolutely punishing on those in the manufacturing sector. They are like the people who are exposed internationally, who are not part of the big crowd that can go to government and get some handout of permits—the big businesses that the government likes talking to. These are the men and women who work in our suburbs and our regional centres, that convert their energy and inputs, inputs that have consumed energy to be produced. They put their own energy—and more—into production processes for creating wealth in this country.

In Victoria we understand manufacturing because it is at the heart of our economy. Do you know what they are telling us in Victoria? I had the pleasure of speaking to Garry Rose from Kinetic Engineering Services. He is an industrial chemist and knows his way in the world. He has been in business for 32 years. He used to joke, ‘I thought my first 30 years were my hardest,’ but he thinks the time ahead will be his hardest. He described this tax as ‘idiotic’. Is he an extremist? I do not think so. Every day he is competing with Chinese imports. He is in the fabrication of things, like the star pickets you can buy from Bunnings and places like that. He makes those against the competition in China. He runs his business on a handful of guys, where there might be dozens of them in China offering the same product. He needs to be incredibly efficient. He consumes steel, and if the steel is too expensive he cannot compete. If the steel is not manufactured in Australia—as OneSteel is concerned about for its future—that steel has to come in from overseas. I reckon it will not come in as steel—it will come in as star pickets. And then what happens to his business?

He is urging the government to think carefully about what it is doing, to understand the impact on small and medium enterprises in Australia and particularly to appreciate that, in manufacturing, these imposts—these imposts that will build at every stage—could, as OneSteel has pointed out, make their business unviable. OneSteel and some of its competitors with electric arc furnaces watch the spot electricity market because, if the electricity spike goes up, they do not run the arc, they do not run the furnace. They wait till it comes down then they bind the market so close, so thin at the margins. It is so competitive that that is how they have to run their business.

What are they going to be faced with under this government? A tax that is going to push up all of the costs of their imports. Garry and his team down at kinetic will have to pick up that increased cost. They have increased costs of their own as they fabricate steel products in a diversified business, and they will have to somehow compete with imports from China. Our manufacturers need to be world-class every day, and this Labor Gillard government is doing nothing at all to help them.

Those people see their economic opportunities and futures going up in the air because of Labor. You know what else is going to go up in the air? Emissions, because they will not be saved here in Australia. Not only will the jobs go up in the air; the emissions will go offshore and more will go up in the air. So there is no upside for the environment. There is no upside for our atmosphere. There is no upside for our country. Fewer people will have jobs, and less wealth will be created in this country. We will export those manufacturing processes and businesses where energy inputs are crucial to economic survival. What is the logic of that?

What is worse about this policy is that it does not achieve anything that the government says it is going to achieve. You could call that a placebo policy, couldn’t you? They talk up a good game and achieve none of it. But placebos are not harmful. They are in the mind of the people. Labor think this makes a difference, and anyone who challenges them is vilified. A placebo causes no harm, but this policy causes plenty. It is long past the time Labor turned their mind to realising that, rather than punishing and penalising with a punitive tax that hits every person, every household and every business at every stage of activity.

Why don’t they open their minds to what the coalition is proposing, where there is actually an incentive, a reward for reducing emissions? We can be partners in that emissions reduction. We can put incentives in place that for those can produce verifiable abatement. We can deliver the five per cent target—exactly the same target Labor is talking about—without shirt-fronting business.

I heard today the Prime Minister talk about the virtue of constancy of purpose. Give me a break. (Time expired)

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