Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

What I am saying is that the statements made by the Prime Minister and indeed by others are incorrect. They are wrong. For instance, her statement that this tax will start small is incorrect. It is untrue. The reality is that this will be the biggest carbon tax anywhere in the world. Evidence given to the Senate Select Committee on Scrutiny of New Taxes on 9 June stated the proposed Australian carbon tax would raise more money in its first three months than the European scheme raised since it began 5½ years ago.

It is only going to take us three months with Labor's proposed carbon tax to raise the same amount of money as Europe has raised since their scheme started, and it is supposed to be the example of the nation that is tough on carbon emissions. The Australian emis­sions trading scheme will raise more revenue in its first month than the US scheme has raised in the two years that it has been operating. It will take only one month to raise more money than the North American scheme has raised since it began.

We are also told, incorrectly, that Australia is the biggest emitter in the world. China is only going to take about seven or eight months to increase its emissions by the amount that we have promised to reduce ours by 2015. That assumes that China actually meets its commitment to only increase its emissions by 496 per cent. The reality is that the government's statements about this are completely inaccurate.

It is also not true to say that we are the biggest per capita emitter of carbon in the world. It is quite clear that because we are a major energy producing country we have higher emissions than some other places, but if you want to look around at who are the biggest per capita emitters in the world you cannot go past Qatar, which has double our emissions, or countries like the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, even Luxem­bourg. They all emit significantly more than Australia. The government is misleading Australian consumers if it makes this claim that we have to do this because we will be left behind by the rest of the world. Here is another really sad untruth inflicted upon the people of Australia. This is really sad and perhaps the sorriest of the misleading statements being made by the government: that we have to have a carbon tax to boost jobs. That is simply untrue. It is ridiculous to suggest that a tax like this is going to make extra jobs. Access Economics predicts the number of job losses at 126,000—

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