Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy and Resources) Share this | Hansard source

The minister raises the issue of Treasury. If we are to rely on Treasury figures, they originally predicted a budget deficit in the current year of $10 billion. I think the latest estimate is $50 billion. So while investment in Australia remained flat between 2008 and 2011—which are the years of the Labor government—in Africa we saw a rise of 26 per cent, in Canada we saw a rise of 31 per cent, in South America we saw a rise of 54 per cent and in the rest of the world we saw a rise of 78 per cent. I guess that says that the investment community is putting its money where it thinks it is going to get the return. Unfortunately, we are missing out on the increase.

This MPI is about the impact of the carbon tax on mining and resources communities. This carbon tax is an absolute assault on those communities. We are seeing that this government is always about putting in place new taxes that affect jobs and investment in Australia. Just yesterday we saw the implementation of the MRRT—the minerals resource rent tax—which will disadvantage Australian miners in comparison with the rest of the world and drive investment overseas. That, coupled with the carbon tax, is going to raise an enormous number of issues, particularly in regional Queensland. It is not just an issue of jobs in Mount Isa as a result of the carbon tax that is going to be imposed on Xstrata's smelter there. It is not just about jobs in Townsville, where a carbon tax is going to be invoked on the nickel refinery. It is about the impact of the carbon tax on one of the most decentralised states in Australia where people live outside the capital cities and rely on electricity that is being transmitted long distances on wires and generated in coal fired power stations, which are going to face a huge hit as a result of this tax.

I heard the Leader of the Nationals highlighting the fact that the government is manipulating the rules for forced purchase of carbon credits. Not only are they doing that and forcing electricity supply companies to buy these credits in advance but also they are imposing a floor in the market that holds the price above the international price. The international price is currently less than $10 per tonne of carbon, and that is in the European market. This government is going to make sure that every regional Queenslander pays more for their electricity by making the minimum carbon price even higher than that by at least $5—and probably by about $8, based on current projections of the carbon price in Europe—putting an unrealistic floor of $15 in the market. Every Queenslander will pay more for their electricity as a result of this and regional Queenslanders will pay even more than those Queenslanders who live in capital cities.

We need to be clear on one thing in relation to this carbon tax. This is the carbon tax that the Prime Minister of Australia promised the electorate there would not be under a government she led. This is the carbon tax. But rest assured of one thing: when Queenslanders this weekend get their opportunity to vote on whether or not a Labor government can impose a carbon tax, wait and see what happens. Just as they did in New South Wales and just as they did in Victoria, the people of Queensland are going to reject this carbon tax at this ballot and at the next one—the federal one.

Queenslanders will understand that this carbon tax is bad for them. It is bad for their job opportunities, it is bad for their cost of living, it is bad for the cost of educating their children, it is bad for the prospects of their children and it is so full of anomalies. If a person in Brisbane decides to catch a bus to work, they pay the carbon tax, but if they decide to drive themselves—one person in a car—they do not pay the carbon tax. People in Queensland are far more practical than that. They do not want to see their jobs disappear. They do not want to see their coal industry constantly put under attack by the Gillard government. They want a future. They do not need another tax. They do not understand why Australians are being asked to pay a tax that is far higher than any tax anywhere else in the world and covering far more of the economy than any tax anywhere else in the world, and they do not understand why they have to pay a tax when much of the rest of the world does not. We are not seeing a carbon tax in the United States of America, we are not seeing a carbon tax in Canada, we are not seeing a carbon tax in South America, we are not seeing a carbon tax in China, we are not seeing a carbon tax in Japan, we are not seeing a carbon tax in Korea, we are not seeing a carbon tax in India, we are not seeing a carbon tax in Africa and we are not seeing a carbon tax in the Middle East. Yet those who sit opposite think that this is going to make a huge difference.

What will make a huge difference to climate in the world is a combined action right around the world. All this carbon tax will do is destroy jobs in Queensland. All it will do is reduce the competitiveness of one of the biggest industries in Queensland, the coal-mining industry. All this tax will do is make it more expensive for Queenslanders to live. I think it is fair to say that people in Queensland have had enough. They want the opportunity to vote on this tax. They will take the opportunity to vote on the tax this weekend—and I think the Labor government will reap the reward it deserves.

Queenslanders do not want to see industries that sustain regional Queensland destroyed by this tax. The Greens seems to think it is fair enough that small towns like Duaringa and Capella just disappear off the face of the earth because we should not have a coal industry—because we have a carbon tax. The Labor Party support that because they use the Greens every day to get legislation through. If that is the position of the Labor Party and the Greens then I think Queenslanders will seek retribution on the basis of that.

I grew up in regional Queensland. I know how hard those people work. They do not want to see their life savings, their future and the future of their children's jobs taken away by this tax. They want to see industries that get out there and have a go and succeed, because they understand that that is where the jobs come from. They understand that you have to be internationally competitive if you are going to have jobs. They will not be internationally competitive if they have a carbon tax and a mining tax. Who knows, next year the Labor Party will have to think up another tax—because every year they come up with a new tax. Every year they show that they are the spend, waste and tax party of this parliament.

People in Queensland will not accept that. They want to see industries prosper. They want to see jobs for their children. They want to have a cost of living that is compatible with the rest of the world. They do not want to be paying more for their electricity or paying more for their goods that are transported in trucks across the vast state of Queensland, simply because the Labor Party had to do a dirty deal with the green movement to maintain power.

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