Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Deakin. He is so in tune with his electorate. That was a really insightful question about things that matter in Deakin. Scrapping the carbon tax was an important part of the government's economic action strategy and we are already starting to see the benefits filtering through. In the first nine months of the Abbott government, we have seen three times the rate of job creation than we saw under the previous Labor government for the first nine months of last year. This is great news for Victoria, great news for Victorians.

Alongside the excellent work of the Napthine government, this has meant 30,900 more jobs in Victoria—nearly 31,000 more jobs. I would have thought that was good news for the members in this place who are interested in the wellbeing and livelihoods of those in Victoria. It is a record that Labor could never have dreamed of achieving—and they certainly never went near doing anything of this quality and this value for job creation and economic revitalisation in Victoria.

A key part of this economic action strategy has been to repeal the carbon tax. We know the carbon tax has hurt and harmed households and small businesses, particularly in Victoria. Yesterday, the ACCC released its third carbon tax repeal monitoring report, which showed that benefits that have been estimated are now materialising and are being passed through to energy consumers in particular. The report revealed the clear benefits of the repeal of the carbon tax and backed up our estimates of saving the average Australian household $550. That is real money in the hands of Australian households, and that is benefiting the businesses that want to work hard to win the opportunity to service those households.

I am talking about people like Tony from Mt Evelyn Super IGA—another Tony—who the member for Casey introduced me to. He has explained that, in his business alone, the savings are about $26,000 a year—that is, his electricity costs, his gas costs and the savings on having to re-gas his refrigeration system. He is delighted about the savings and he is delighted that his customers are also seeing improved household expenditure opportunities.

The Blue Bay Cheese Company, a small family business, have saved more than 12 per cent on their peak electricity costs and have experienced a 21 per cent saving on their off-peak electricity charges. The Bays Hospital in Mornington have saved $3,000 a month off their electricity bills.

We promised that we would repeal the carbon tax, and we did. We promised that we would ensure that those savings are passed through to households and small businesses—and we are.

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