Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

There is a manufacturing business called Vicpole in Bayswater on the edge of my electorate. It is a very successful business which has been manufacturing for over 20 years now. It manufactures street poles, street bollards and other street furniture. It employs about 40 people, many of whom have been working in the firm for 12 years or more. Alan Vickery, the Managing Director of Vicpole, says that after 20 years of operation, due to the impact of the carbon tax, he may have to cease manufacturing and start importing instead, the same as all his competitors do. He says:

The proposed carbon tax could be very damaging for Vicpole. What concerns me is that we've got 40 employees working for Vicpole who depend on the fact that we are competitive when we make our poles in Australia.

He goes on to say:

… I can't build in a measure to counter a 20% price increase when my competitors don't have that same cost.

He concludes by saying:

It would not be the end of Vicpole, but it would be the end of the 40 jobs. There would be no requirement to have 40 employees to unload containers.

In this instance, we have a small- to medium-sized manufacturer who will be put in great jeopardy due to the Prime Minister's carbon tax. Jobs will be lost, potentially 40 jobs—40 good workers who have been loyal to this firm for over 10 years. And emissions will probably go up as a result.

I raise this particular business to show that in order to determine the impacts of a carbon tax on business you would need to look at the individual enterprise level and the impacts that the tax will have on that individual enterprise. It is all very well to have grandiose models which suggest that X, Y or Z might be happening, but you have to look at the enterprise level to determine what the impact on that enterprise will be from the imposition of a carbon tax. In this instance, the impact will be 40 jobs on the line.

Vicpole is not the only manufacturing business like this in Australia or even in my own electorate. There are many small- and medium-sized manufacturers operating at global best practice level, both in their operations and in their emissions intensity, who will be hit by this carbon tax and who will be reduced in size and have to lay off workers as a result. None of these small and medium-sized enterprises will receive compensation. All will face increased costs. All will face competitive disadvantage against imports on which there is no carbon tax. Therefore all will face pressure on jobs—and for what impact? Will Australian emissions go down as a result of that? Yes, in part—if an enterprise goes out of business and stops manufacturing, that business will produce fewer emissions. It will produce fewer emissions if businesses close down. The government has got that right. But when you actually look at it at a global level, which is what is important, emissions will frequently go up globally because our manufacturers in Australia often have better emissions intensity than our competitors do, certainly in China. And of course you have to add to that the extra emissions resulting from transportation.

This is the ridiculousness of the carbon tax, as even some on the Labor side now acknowledge: if you put a tax on our manufacturing in a context where there is no tax on competitor imports, you will simply cost Australian jobs and have no impact on global emissions. Indeed, you may increase global emissions. This is the farce. I invite the member for La Trobe and the member for Deakin to come with me to the manufacturing belts in Bayswater—some of it overlaps into their electorates—and explain to the manufacturers the impact that the carbon tax will have on them and their employees.

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