Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

There was, of course, the $800 million regional priority fund that RDAs could also apply for, but $350 million of that was also lost in the wake of the floods in Queensland. Many people in the community on these RDAs who are giving of their time are expecting to see something better for the future, because that is what the government has promised them. I hope that materialises; I am not sure it will.

I said I would come back to the carbon tax because it is the biggest single threat to my electorate. As I mentioned it is not factored into the budget. I have three companies in my electorate that qualify as major emitters of carbon. One is a lead-zinc production platform in Port Pirie named Nyrstar, OneSteel has a steelmaking enterprise in Whyalla and Alinta runs a coal-fired power station in Port Augusta, producing 40 per cent of the state's capacity of electricity.

Taking Nyrstar first, I was looking at some figures the other day on zinc production and, in Australia, we produce about 50 per cent of the CO2 per tonne of zinc production compared with the Chinese average. If this company were to fail—and I can tell you there are some major investment decisions to be made there in the near future—and if it was to decide that it no longer saw Australia as a safe and profitable place to produce lead and zinc, there is no doubt that capacity will pop up in China or in a similar country. If that results in double the amount of CO2 being emitted it could not possibly be a good thing for the environment, for CO2 production around the world. What it will do is make sure that we have major areas of unemployment.

Regional unemployment is one of the most difficult problems to solve. I look at the OneSteel operation in Whyalla. For the information of the House, when steel is made around 80 per cent of the CO2 produced comes from the process of putting carbon in with the iron to turn it into steel. You simply cannot avoid it. It is a fact of life: if you want to make steel you have to put carbon in with the mix. Taxing this means that ramping up the cost our steel for absolutely no gain, because the process cannot be avoided. The only way you can avoid the tax is to take your industry somewhere else.

I mentioned the coal-fired power station at Port Augusta. There are some big decisions to be made there about opening up new coal pits for the future. It is all very well to talk of the production of CO2 from coal-fired power stations, and probably quite rightly, but the fact remains that that power station produces 40 per cent of the state's electricity. Even in Hindmarsh, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas, we might find the lights going a bit dim if we pulled the plug on it, so there has to be a plan for the future.

On a local note concerning the budget, on 24 March this House of Representatives unanimously approved a motion that asked the government to intervene in the case of the Ardrossan, Keith and Moonta hospitals and restore some funding the state government had removed—by reducing the state's specific hospital grants—and paying it directly to the hospitals. Exactly the same motion was moved in the Senate on 12 May, but at this stage we have seen no action from the Minister for Health and Ageing.

I hoped that I might have seen something in the budget and, as there was nothing, I am beginning to wonder what the attitude of the Minister for Health and Ageing is to the will of the parliament. The motions were passed by 100 per cent of members—there was certainly no dissent from either House—and it would indicate to me that the members of this place feel quite strongly about this subject. I call on the minister once again to intervene in the situation. I have said repeatedly that I can understand if the minister would not want to do exactly as the House and the Senate proposed but, as the major provider of finance to the state, it is in the minister's power to pick up the phone to the state government and say, 'Fix the problem.' We are talking about a little over a million dollars a year. In the overall scheme of things, this is chicken feed.

In closing, this is a budget built on optimism. It is optimistic that China will continue to boom. It is optimistic that the European debt crisis will not lead to a lack of confidence around the world. Every day when we pick up the papers one would have to wonder what is going to happen next. A budgetary situation can deteriorate quite quickly because, remember, just six months ago we were expecting a deficit of $41.5 billion. Now it is $50 billion—a deterioration of $8½ billion or $47 million a day. This budget is based on an extreme dose of optimism. It will be lucky if it can face the test of the next four years. (Time expired)

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