Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak today in relation to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation Bill 2012, the Clean Energy Legislation Amendment Bill 2012, the Clean Energy (Customs Tariff Amendment) Bill 2012, and the Clean Energy (Excise Tariff Legislation Amendment) Bill 2012. Once again the government has sought to mislead the Australian people. I speak on behalf of the people of my electorate of Wright, whom I represent, because I aim to make every effort to ensure that they are made aware of the inherent deception that is the perpetual action of this Gillard government.

The carbon tax was legislated in 2010 in a package of 13 bills—a $23 a tonne tax, rising at 2.5 per cent per year in real terms to be replaced by an emission trading scheme from July 2015. With reference to the trading price, the floor price will come in at $15 and that will take us through to the year 2018. Treasury's own modelling tells us that by the year 2020 the carbon price will be at $37. I bring to the House's attention that I believe that the global price for carbon today is around $4.50. However, may I remind you that the Clean Energy Finance Corporation Bill was not part of this package and has been introduced as a stand-alone piece of legislation. The bill establishes the board of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, giving it a statutory responsibility for decision making and management of the corporation's investments.

As a parliament we have a duty of care to appropriate funds diligently. The vertical integration of funds—how they will travel through this organisation—will mean that the government will go to the market and raise money from the bond market. That, in turn, will be given to the CEFC. From there it will go on and fund projects. The government tell us that the returns from those investments will then be reinvested back into the CEFC.

I want to bring the parliament's attention to the potential make-up of the CEFC, the board and the directors, and draw an analogy. Because the finance corporation is an off-the-government-books investment, not that dissimilar to the NBN, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the remuneration packages that are potentially available to the directors of this organisation could be similar to the NBN. For those of you who may not be aware of what those packages are, the No. 1 bloke in the NBN is on a salary package of about $2 million a year, which I think is outrageous. There are eight—

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