Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Hansard source

Only three days ago the ACT regulator announced that if the carbon tax were repealed there would be two tariffs, one without the carbon tax and one with. Take the carbon tax away and electricity bills will drop by 11.6 per cent. I just want to repeat that for the House: in the ACT, electricity bills will drop by 11.6 per cent without a carbon tax. As the member for Reid points out, the New South Wales IPART regulator made an assessment about the difference between gas prices with and without a carbon tax—nothing hypothetical here, regulated prices, two tariffs, one with a carbon tax and one without. What is the difference? Up to 9.2 per cent lower prices for families without a carbon tax. It is not just New South Wales and it is not just the ACT; in Queensland, the Competition Authority also made an assessment. They made a regulatory determination that there would be a certain price with the carbon tax, take the carbon tax away and there would be a regulated decrease of, on average, eight per cent for Australian families living in Queensland—in other words, real reductions in the cost of living, on average, of $550 a year as determined by the regulators.

The member asked, 'Who is standing in the way of repealing the carbon tax?' Until yesterday we had thought that it was the opposition, because, although they said before the election that they would terminate the carbon tax, afterwards they voted to keep it. Our friend the member for Port Adelaide sat there on Australian Agenda and—I just want to quote this—told the Australian people, 'We do support the abolition of the carbon tax.' Well, next week you will have the chance to vote for the abolition of the carbon tax in this House, in this place. So the message is very clear: if you believe in fairness, vote to abolish the carbon tax; and, if you believe in saving Australian families $550, get out of the way.

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