Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I am very happy for the parliamentary secretary to get up and correct the record about all his colleagues who have been involved in small business. If he had any understanding of small business, there is no way he would be supporting these bills. It is making their job so much harder.

Besides the effects on the people of Stirling, I want to talk quickly about the effect this tax is going to have on my home state of Western Australia. The Western Australian Treasury have done a preliminary assessment of the impact of the proposed carbon tax and it makes for pretty grim reading for all West Australian MPs. I certainly hope those West Australian MPs on the Labor side of the House avail themselves of this analysis and then think twice before they impose this enormous burden on their home state. I do not have time to go through all of the analysis, but I will highlight what I believe are the important points. Firstly, the West Australian Treasury say in no uncertain terms that they believe the modelling that has been provided to date by the Commonwealth is nothing short of heroic. They say specifically that virtually all the modelling talks about purchasing permits from overseas, and that is a heroic assumption that there will be a fully functioning international emissions permit market from 2015-16. They say that appears very optimistic given that there is no global market for such permits and there is no prospect of one being created in the near term. They also directly address what the cost impacts are going to be in the first year alone for West Australian households.

I will go through some of those costs, because they have been detailed by the Treasurer, Christian Porter. He says in the first year alone West Australian households will pay at least $144 extra in household bills. To break that down, it will be an extra $111 per year in electricity charges, specifically because of the carbon tax; $19.50 extra in public transport fares, specifically because of the carbon tax; and $13.25 extra in water charges in the first year of the tax alone. The Treasury analysis also states that all Western Australian families should expect to pay higher electricity, water and public transport fees for every single year under this tax. The analysis also says that the $144 average increase in household bills next year would be the tip of the iceberg and that the Prime Minister's promise that two out of three households will be compensated is just not true in the case of Western Australia, where a full 52 per cent of households will be worse off under the carbon tax.

According to the Commonwealth's own analysis, the carbon tax is going to apply to 500 of what are called Australia's largest polluters—on this side of the House we call them Australia's most successful companies. At least 75 of these 500 companies operate solely in Western Australia and the analysis produced by the Western Australian Treasury firmly states that the carbon tax is going to impact Western Australia even more than other parts of the country.

The Western Australian Treasury modelling refers to the $70 billion that is going to be directly shifted offshore by 2050 under the government's plans. That is, $57 billion is going to be directly transferred from Australian taxpayers to people overseas. That amounts to over $1,600 for every person in Australia. We are debating bills here today astonishingly that are going to transfer from every single Australian in today's dollars over $1,600 overseas. All of this is for an environmental result that means that Australia's domestic emissions will increase by 2020, and by 2050, by which time this $1,600 per person will have been transferred overseas, our domestic emissions will have fallen fully by two per cent. So we have all of this incredible pain for absolutely no environmental gain.

As time is running out—I might seek to table this analysis at the end of this speech—I just make a couple of other points made by the West Australian Treasury, because it is a very important analysis about the real world impact of this carbon tax. The Treasury have said that this significant outflow of income being transferred overseas will have implications for Australia's exchange rate and terms of trade. They go on to specifically list the impact on West Australian pensioners and single-income households. Their conclusion is that people will be significantly worse off at every level of society, which the government refuses to acknowledge and continues to ignore.

I just end on this note. We have a commitment from the opposition side of the House that if we get into government we will repeal this tax. As has been rightly pointed out, that is going to be significantly disruptive for business and consumers in our economy. It is not our position on the carbon tax that has ever changed. We have been 100 per cent clear from day one that we do not want a carbon tax. We promised not to do it at the last election and, of course, we have stuck to that commitment. It is the Labor side of the House that has changed its mind. The Prime Minister promised there would not be a carbon tax, yet she has reneged on that promise. If she believes that the Australian people will benefit from this tax, she must take it to the Australian people and get them to pass judgment on it, and I urge her to do so.

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