Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this matter of public importance on carbon pricing to tell the House why the party that delivered us the pink batts fiasco, the green loans scandal, the school halls blow-out, the network tender debacle, the GroceryWatch and Fuelwatch embarrassments and the misguided and costly failures of the NBN has gone one step further by, in 38 days time, delivering to the Australian people—all 23 million of them—a carbon tax. This is a carbon tax that nobody voted for and a carbon tax that nobody wants. Let's not forget that this Prime Minister told the Australian people just five days before the last election, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' Let's not forget this is the same Prime Minister who said that the Labor Party was 'the party of truth-telling'. This is the same Prime Minister who promised at the last election a citizens assembly—another gabfest—and instead has delivered the Australian people another tax grab. That is what we have to wait for in 38 days time.

We are here to discuss the impact of the carbon tax on the jobs and the cost of living of Australians. We are here to discuss why companies such as Toyota and Holden, Hydro Aluminium and OneSteel, ANZ, Westpac, Macquarie Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, Qantas, Goodman Fielder, Telstra, 1st Fleet trucking, Pacific Brands and Murray Goulburn all have shed jobs this year. We are here to discuss why the only jobs that are being created in Australia are in the bureaucracy, because this government has announced a $3.2 billion Australian renewable energy agency, a $256 million clean energy regulator and a carbon cop, a $25 million climate change authority and the daddy of them all, the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

We are here to tell the Australian people that the only other jobs outside the bureaucracy and the Prime Minister's office that are being created are in the advertising industry, thanks to a $70 million taxpayer funded advertising campaign that does not mention the two words 'carbon tax'—you would probably have to spend an extra $30 million to get it out there. Of the $70 million, $36 million is being rushed out the door, a total of $270,000 a day. This is scandalous, because on 8 March in the Agea spokesman for the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency said no decision had been made on the future of advertising. In April in the HeraldSunit was reported: 'Last night a spokesman for Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said no decision had been made about whether to create more carbon tax ads.' Rubbish: we now know about the $70 million going out the door.

What are we going to get in 38 days time? We are going to get a $23 a tonne carbon tax that is going to hit Australian households by at least $515 a year—a carbon tax which will grow to $29 a tonne by 2016, $37 a tonne by 2020 and a shameful $350 a tonne by 2050. We are told by the Energy Supply Association of Australian that Australian consumers are already paying more than 70 per cent more for their electricity than their counterparts in the United States and 130 per cent more than their counterparts in Canada. What is going to happen on 1 July? Automatically gas and electricity are going up by 10 per cent. What is more we will be spending Australian taxpayer money to buy carbon permits overseas to the tune of $3½ billion by 2020 and a massive $57 billion by 2050, at a time when Europe Poll are investigating massive fraud with the carbon trading scheme. This is what Australian people have to look forward to.

Who is going to be hurt? Self-funded retirees are going to be hurt. They have written to me. Gabrielle Whiting is a constituent of mine. She is under the age of 65 and earns about $35,000 a year. She has gone to the government's own calculator on its website to work out how she goes under the carbon tax. Guess what? She is $251 a year worse off. Self-funded retirees have been forgotten by this government. What the carbon tax is going to do to my state of Victoria has been illustrated in a Deloitte report. This Deloitte report contains a quote from a Premier Ted Baillieu press release. He says as a result of their modelling, which is based on Treasury modelling, by 2015:

There will be 35,000 fewer jobs than would have been the case without a carbon tax.

Investment will be down almost $6.3 billion, or 6.6 per cent.

Per capita income will be more than $1,050 lower.

The Victorian State Budget will be almost $660 million worse off.

I know that in other states, like Queensland where are a number of my colleagues come from, similar Deloitte reports have found that the Queensland gross state product would be 2.76 per cent lower by 2020 and 4.11 per cent lower in 2050 with a carbon tax compared to without a carbon tax. These are destructive numbers—they are not just numbers, they are families and households.

We heard in the parliament today about Hydro Aluminium which will be closing down its Kurri Kurri plant which employs 344 people. We have heard that Qantas, OneSteel and BlueScope Steel have all lost more than 2,000 jobs and will be having a $400 million a year carbon tax bill. We have heard that aluminium output, on the basis of the government's own Treasury modelling, will be over 60 per cent lower after a carbon tax—in fact, the Australian chair of Rusal, the world's largest aluminium producer, has said the carbon tax is based on 'a very flawed assumption that our competitors are going to have similar or more aggressive carbon or energy policies attached to them'. Let's not forget that Rusal has a 20 per cent stake in Queensland Alumina, with 1,800 workers in Gladstone. Let's not forget that international capital is fungible and will move overseas if the costs of doing business in Australia are too great. That is why the CEO of BHP, Marius Kloppers, has called the tax a 'deadweight cost'.

If you look at Westfield, nearly 12,000 of their storeholders have had the carbon tax pricing built into their leases. If you look at dairy farmers, they are going to be paying up to $5,000 more per farm. If you look at irrigators, it is $282 a year more for them.

Debate interrupted.

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