Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry and Science) Share this | Hansard source

There are adverse impacts on Australian industry by the government's proposed carbon tax because the carbon tax was devised deliberately to cause harm and add additional cost burdens to Australian industry. That is an objective of the carbon tax.

We should not be surprised at that because this came out of a desperate political fix that was necessary to keep the Prime Minister in power. What happened? Bob Brown demanded this carbon tax. He demanded this carbon tax because, as we all know, the Greens are not particularly interested in economic growth, industrial development, and greater economic progress and prosperity for our nation. They would rather see us living back in caves, abandoning all our vehicles and abandoning the consumer society. They want to impose their particular standards of an appropriate way of life on us. They have done that by conning the Prime Minister into introducing a carbon tax. Little is said about how the introduction of a carbon tax for industry will impact on jobs, because when you hurt the competitiveness of Australian industry you hurt Australian jobs. So with this carbon tax we will see something that no other country on earth has introduced or even canvassed—that is, an economy wide tax that will continue to increase. It will go up and up and up.

Why will this damage Australian industry? It will damage Australian industry because it hits at the heart of our competitiveness. It will impose additional cost burdens on industries right across our economy and effectively give a leg-up to those products and services that are imported in their competition with Australian made products and services. What will happen to Australian exports? They will be more costly to make and we will be further disadvantaged against our export competition.

Even if the government talk about compensation they fail to admit that there is no rescue for industry once this so-called compensation runs out. That is assuming that the compensation will be adequate in the first place and that it has been calculating accurately—an enormously optimistic assumption to make, considering the government's other economic predictions, which have so-far failed to hit the mark.

What happens when the compensation runs out in four years time? The issue of the relative uncompetitiveness of Australian industry will still remain. It will still be there. Does anyone imagine for one minute that significant industries that require regular, quite important capital investments will think, 'We'll go and invest two or three million dollars in new machinery because we are getting compensated over the next four years'? Of course they are not. They are going to say, 'In five years time, when we're really hit hard by the carbon tax we will not be in a competitive position, so our investment decisions today will be affected when the compensation runs out.'

What about all those businesses and all those industries that will not receive any compensation at all? There has been scant regard for the increase in the costs of many businesses right across the economy. Industry is vital for the Australian economy—not just because we want industry but because it is vital for our prosperity and for employment.

When we see the projected loss of jobs because of this carbon tax then it raises even greater concerns. New South Wales Treasury modelling is predicting 31,000 jobs will be lost in New South Wales by 2030, with 18,500 jobs lost in the Hunter alone. Deloitte predicts a loss of 21,000 jobs in Queensland, and at least 23,000 jobs will disappear across Victoria. The Prime Minister talks about this myth of green jobs, this hoax she is trying to perpetrate, this falsehood she is trying to convince everyone about—and no-one is being convinced. What has happened overseas? In the UK, every so-called 'green' job has cost 3.7 jobs elsewhere in the economy.

When we look across industries, what is one of the most important sectors in our economy? What is the backbone of so many communities, not just in the cities but in rural and regional areas? It is small business. And what exists in this package for small business? Absolutely nothing—there is no direct support for small business. There is no recognition of the increased transportation costs or the increased electricity costs because this government has not looked at those very important parts of our economy: those people who do not have a voice to force the government to the table to negotiate. We have heard the government say, 'Oh, well, you're not going to be materially affected.' The government sanctioned small business fact sheet says that there may be some indirect cost on small business, such as higher electricity bills, as a result of bigger companies passing on the costs of the carbon price. Yet the clean energy plan says that, when it comes to indirect price impacts, most small businesses will not be materially affected. This is absolute rubbish; an absolute untruth.

All the government needed to do was speak to some of the players in the retail sector. I spoke to one of my local supermarkets in Wangaratta and they calculated the increased electricity costs to their business. Being unable to pass on those costs because their competitive advantage is to be 1c cheaper than the major players, they said that they would have to absorb those costs by reducing their workforce. That is not good for industry, for local economies or for regions, but the government refuse to acknowledge this. It is as if the government have convinced themselves that if they crash through with the carbon tax then people will forget the pain.

People are not going to forget the pain of being put out of work, of losing the competitiveness of their business or of having their investment jeopardised because the government did not engage in reform. Change is not reform. To save their political neck, the government gave in to the Greens. That is the only reason these industries will suffer, will become less competitive and will pay higher electricity and transport costs: because this government were too gutless—pure and simple—to stare down the Greens.

When we look at how the government have engaged with various industry organisations across our diversified economy we can see that they have not really engaged with them at all. When Graham Kraehe of BlueScope said any compensation would be 'like putting a bandaid on a bullet wound', what did we hear from the government? Nothing. They have scant regard for the concern of those people who are at the coalface of their particular business or industry. What VECCI said was:

We are disappointed that there is a lot of stick and little carrot for small business.

They also said:

This … will mean small businesses will need to take further energy efficiency measures in their day-to-day business operations to keep costs down.

And the national organisation, ACCI, said:

Economically, the tax is a harsh blow to import and export competing businesses, especially small and medium businesses. Our international competitors get a free kick, of our own making.

Isn't it extraordinary that we have some ministers on the government front bench bleating about government intervention and protectionism when they are engaging in a deliberate act of self-harm to Australian industry? They are adding to the costs of production in Australia and deliberately giving a competitive leg-up to import competition and to those who compete with us in exports.

Another important industry in Australia is transport. It is trite to say we are a large nation with significant transport routes crossing from one end to the other. But, when we look at what a carbon tax will do to transport, it will hit it very hard. We know that a carbon tax will be applied to trucks from 1 July 2014. The Australian Trucking Association estimates that the carbon tax on the sector will cost the industry and its customers $510 million in the 2014-15 year alone. What does that mean? It means there will be higher costs for everyday goods at the supermarket and every store. It also means that there will be less competition in the transport sector because smaller trucking companies will not be able to absorb those costs as easily as the bigger players. That will mean greater concentration in the transport industry, and we know that when you have a smaller number of players in a particular industry that tends to make it easier for those players to put up their costs. So this will lead to a shrinking of industries not just in the transport area but in the retail sector right across the economy, leaving those who remain with greater market power. That is not good for competition, that is not good for innovative industry practices and that is certainly not good for the consumer and households, who are struggling under the costs at the moment.

The aviation sector is going to be slogged with a near tripling in the excise on aviation fuel. What will that do to airline travel in Australia? What will that do to regional airlines? It will decimate regional airlines, and those of us who have regional and rural electorates know how important aviation travel is to us. We see that the CEO of the Regional Aviation Association of Australia has said:

It appears that the government either doesn't care, or doesn't understand the role of regional aviation.

He goes on to say:

The Prime Minister claims that the carbon tax is aimed at the big polluters, but the regional aviation industry contributes around 0.2 per cent of the nation’s total carbon emissions. The fact that the tax is being applied via the aviation fuel levy to regional aviation, an industry that barely emits carbon and which actually acts as an alternative to other carbon producing transport options, makes a mockery of the Prime Minister’s claim …

And indeed it does. How many businesses will be affected because of these increased costs on regional transport? What ripple effects that will have through regional communities remains to be seen.

We also see that the building sector will be significantly affected. A carbon tax of 23 per cent will add at least $5,000 to the cost of building a new home at a time when the affordability of housing is a very vexed issue, causing great anxiety, particularly to first homeowners. We see that a carbon tax will add $36 a month to the cost of servicing an average mortgage of just over $340,000, but have we seen any recognition of the impact of that on the housing industry by the government? No, we have not. They are trying to ram this through the parliament as quickly as possible to avoid scrutiny.

And what about the impact on manufacturing—and one of the most important sectors of the manufacturing industry, the largest sector, the food and grocery sector? The industry association estimates that the carbon tax will add $120 a year to household grocery bills, because any additional costs of running a business will be passed on to the consumer, and this is three times the government's estimate of $40. I say that because a carbon tax will have an impact right across the supply chain, from farming to food processing, from transport to storage, from refrigeration to lighting. Any business that is involved in any of these areas, any industry that switches on a light and uses transport, will be affected to the detriment of the Australian economy and to the benefit of importers. (Time expired)

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