George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

In supporting this motion, I remind the House of the purpose of a tax summit: to answer questions and consider the impact of various taxation policies. This Labor-Green government's plan to introduce a carbon tax will deliver for Australia the biggest tax regime without a mandate that this country has ever seen. It goes against the Prime Minister's election commitment and the Treasurer's election commitment and the commitments of at least 144 of the 150 members of the House of Representatives. To have this tax summit after the introduction of legislation for the carbon tax or the mining tax or without them in the mix, is to make a mockery of the tax summit and to admit that both these taxes will not stand up to the scrutiny of a tax summit. Far too many questions remain unanswered for such monstrous taxes to be imposed on the people of Australia through further means of stealth and deception. Australian voters were not afforded the opportunity to ask questions before the last election as the Prime Minister's promise that there would be no carbon tax under a government that she led took any debate off the table. Having the tax summit after these taxes are introduced or without them being considered is another means of taking the debate off the table and it is proof that when these taxes are scrutinised, we will not like what we see.

This Labor-Greens government is eager to label any scrutiny or discussion of carbon tax impacts as scaremongering. But in fact these discussions that we are having right now are at the conservative end of the scale and no-one fully understands the profound impact this tax will have on real people, real families and real communities. When we talk about 6½c a litre additional tax on fuel and $300 a year additional on electricity bills, we are talking about Treasury's own figures based on a carbon tax of $26 per tonne. If this is scaremongering, then what will Labor call it when the figures are adjusted for the minimum $40 a tonne that is being advocated by Senator Bob Brown? What will it be if the figures are adjusted to reflect the $100 a tonne figure put forward by Senator Sarah Hanson-Young? These are the people that this government is in alliance with. This Labor-Greens government does not want their carbon tax monstrosity reviewed by the people through a tax summit. They do not even want us to discuss the basic impact of the low end of the scale. They do not even want the public to mention it.

That is understandable, because the public hates it. The public knows that this carbon tax is a bad tax. They know that it will hurt industries. They know it will hurt business. They know that it will hurt families and they know that it will cost jobs. The majority of the general public out there, the real people, real families, real communities, know that this carbon tax will not do anything to clean up the environment, but they know that it will clean out their wallets. The people of my electorate in Dawson probably have the most to lose out of these taxes. The mining tax and the carbon tax appear to them to be a direct attack on their jobs and their cost of living. It is almost as if there is a visceral hatred of productive regions like those in the electorate of Dawson from the other side. As if the mining tax was not bad enough, independent economists now say that this carbon tax of $26 a tonne will mean that 16 coalmines will be closed with 23,000 mining jobs lost. How many of those will be jobs of miners in my electorate of Dawson?

We have heard that the government will have households compensated under this carbon tax, but I tell you what: you cannot compensate someone losing their job. In regional centres that are creating the wealth, like Central Queensland, the Mackay region and the Bowen Basin, the cost of living is already higher than for the rest of the country. The boom centres pay more in freight, they pay more in rent and they pay more in groceries, but not everyone is on better wages associated with the boom. Introducing a carbon tax will increase costs on every single thing we need. People on average incomes will not be compensated because they will be paying more—most likely a lot more. How much more will they pay? How will the carbon tax affect mining families? How will it affect non-mining families in mining towns? These are questions that we do not have answers for. The tax summit will supply some of those answers and get to the truth of the matter but, to paraphrase Jack Nicholson, it seems they cannot handle the truth. But I have a message to the government from the people: we can handle the truth; we just cannot handle two great big taxes that will be no gain and all pain.

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