Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I will move on to the direct action plan of the coalition. The direct action plan of the coalition has a number of elements. It establishes an emissions reduction fund. The funds that we have allocated to addressing climate change will be placed in that emissions reduction fund, and there will be a proper process by which the best ideas, the best projects and programs from around Australia, will vie for the funds out of the emissions reduction fund—ideas like capturing carbon in soil, planting trees on non-prime agricultural land, cleaning up waste coalmine gas, cleaning up landfill gas, promoting energy efficiency and converting some of the older, dirtier, coal fired power stations to gas. This would achieve exactly the same reduction in emissions, of five per cent, that the government claims it will do through its own policy.

One of my most serious objections to the government's carbon tax legislation is that it will very seriously impact on Australian households, individuals and families at a time when they can least afford it. Households are struggling with the rising cost of living, and yet the government's response to the rising cost of living is to slap a new tax, the carbon tax, on the Australian people through this legislation, which will push up cost-of-living pressures even more.

The South Australian Council of Social Service's annual Cost of Living survey shows that since 2001 food prices have gone up 13.2 per cent, utilities have risen 33.4 per cent, health costs have gone up 22.8 per cent and rental costs have gone up 8.4 per cent above inflation. In Adelaide, utility prices have skyrocketed, with a 37 per cent increase in electricity in August this year, a 14 per cent rise in gas prices and a 30 per cent increase in water prices.

One of the roles of any government is to do no harm to the Australian people. Yet this carbon tax does direct harm to the Australian people through increasing prices at a time when they can least afford it. Now is the time for the government to be reducing pressure on households, families and individuals across Australia. Now is the time for the government to find measures that reduce the footprint of government in the Australian society, reduce regulation and reduce red tape, not create new programs which require more bureaucrats, more regulation, more red tape and more spending.

Ms Plibersek interjecting—

We know that the member opposite, the member for Sydney, has been in favour of every spending proposal that has ever come across her desk as a minister or as a member. As a leading member of the Left, she has never even thought of any possibility of saving taxpayers' money because, as far as she is concerned, it is her money. The member for Sydney regards the taxpayers' money as her money.

This carbon tax will also cost jobs. It will export jobs overseas. Every government in Australia along the eastern seaboard and Western Australia have done their own analysis of what the carbon tax means, and it is not good news for those people who need their jobs to be able to pay their mortgages or school fees, or just to pay their grocery bills.

The Deloitte Access Economics report that was commissioned by the Bligh government—which, last time I looked, was a Labor government—predicts that Queensland's gross state product would be 2.76 per cent lower by 2020 and 4.11 per cent lower by 2050 than it would be without a carbon price. It predicts the loss of 21,000 Queensland jobs and a net loss in the economic value of the state's generation companies of $640 million, meaning higher electricity prices. The Victorian government commissioned an analysis, which found that 23,000 jobs that would have been created will not be created across Victoria by 2015 as a result of the carbon tax and that the Victorian economy would be $2.8 billion worse off in 2015 and $3 billion worse off in 2030. In New South Wales, analysis commissioned by the Labor government and released by the O'Farrell government found that 31,000 jobs will be lost in New South Wales by 2030 and 18½ thousand in the Hunter Valley alone. In Western Australia, the Western Australian Treasury has shown that over half of all Western Australia households will be worse off because of a carbon tax.

In the closing minute of my speech on the carbon tax legislation, I want to deal very briefly with the issue of the government hypocrisy in even being prepared to come into this House and introduce this legislation. I do not need to remind Australian people of the Prime Minister's promise:

There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.

They certainly have that indelibly printed on their minds. Then there was the Treasurer's promise:

We have made our position very clear. We have ruled it out.

But someone obviously did not tell the Minister for Finance and Deregulation that they were going to go ahead with a carbon tax, because during 2009 and 2010 she said things like, 'A carbon tax does not guarantee emissions reductions,' and, 'A carbon tax is not the silver bullet some people might think.' We know that she cannot have any environmental certainty with a carbon tax when she says:

I have been very upfront about why I think a carbon tax isn't the most sensible thing for Australia.

I could not agree with her more. (Time expired)

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