Craig Kelly (Hughes, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to speak this evening on the Treasury Laws Amendment (2020 Measures No. 4) Bill 2020 and do so in my first contribution to this parliament from this position. Firstly, since we are talking on a money bill: about 11 years ago, when I first came to this parliament, I sat in that seat over there, just a few places from where I am now. At that time, we were most concerned that the debt the federal government had run up was approaching $100 billion. We ran around with our debt trucks and complained about how bad this was and how we would work hard, if we came to government, to get that debt back down to where it was before.

The last estimate is that this parliament, since I've been here, is heading for a debt of $1.3 trillion. It's very hard for people to get their head around how big a trillion dollars is. But $1.3 trillion is $1,300 billion, or $1.3 million million. That is where, after a decade of my being in this place, our national debt is headed, as a result of expenditure that has been approved in this chamber, where I now stand. That is the debt we are leaving future generations to pay. It also means that in every budget for years to come the largest government expenditures will not be on health, on education or on aged care or for kids with disabilities; one of the largest expenditure items in the budget will be interest, because of the debt that we have run up.

Getting back to the specifics of the bill, schedule 1 of the bill, it says, will amend the income tax law to ensure that no tax is payable on refunds of large-scale generation certificate shortfall charges. That's wonderful! But let's be very clear about what we are talking about here. It goes on to say that under the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Regulations 2007 energy retailers and other liable entities must surrender large-scale generation certificates of pay a shortfall charge. Let's call a spade a spade. This shortfall charge is not really a shortfall charge. It is a green tax on the production of energy in this country that makes the generation of electricity higher. It goes onto the bills of every Australian small business, and it goes onto the bills of every household. This year, if my calculations are correct, the current renewable energy target is 33 million megawatt hours, and the current certificate price is around $34. That means we have a billion-dollar green tax on electricity in this country. And I hear speakers from both sides of this chamber saying that this is somehow a good thing—that it is somehow a good thing that we add a billion dollars of tax to the production of electricity in this country.

And what is the result of that? The result of that is that, as a nation, we import more and more solar panels from China. The current imports, on the last numbers from the Parliamentary Library, show that close to 90 per cent, by dollar value, of the imports of solar panels to this country come from China. So the ultimate winner in all these policies—and as we add these green taxes on the production of goods in Australia, which don't apply to the production of goods in China—is the People's Republic of China. These policies we have are nothing more than a wealth transfer out of this country and straight into the People's Republic of China.

And what is China doing? Let's just have a look at a report from a couple of weeks ago. It says that last year China put 38.4 gigawatts of new coal-fired capacity into operation. Let's put that into some perspective: Australia's total capacity of coal-fired generation is something around 24 gigawatts. So last year alone, in 2020, China added 50 per cent more to its fleet than the entire fleet of Australian coal generation plants. Another way to equate that is to say that a coal generator, somewhere like Liddell or Yallourn, which are scheduled to close without replacement, is around 1.5 gigawatts, so, last year, China built the equivalent of a new Liddell every 14 days and yet we're closing these things down.

I have more about what China is doing at the moment. Not only did China build another 38 gigawatts of new coal-fired capacity it also approved a further 36.9 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity. That was approved to be built in the years to come. So China now has 247 gigawatts of coal power under development. That's 10 times more than Australia's entire coal fleet capacity. That isn't what they have today, that's just what they have under development. And do we think that we're going to change the weather by putting a billion-dollar tax on small businesses and households through generation of coal-fired capacity? We think we should get some great credit, because if they pay that tax as a shortfall charge and they then actually pay the money out to buy the certificates we're going to give them a refund of the tax that they've paid elsewhere. So we applaud and clap ourselves. I could go on.

I would also like to comment on the member for Goldstein's contribution to this debate. I agree 100 per cent with him. The mistaken ideology that we have in this country, when it comes to superannuation, is that the money seems to grow on trees. Every single dollar that a worker earns in superannuation has to be earned by the company that he's working for. It's different in the government sector; they just tax the private sector. But every small business out there working in the private sector and which pays their workers superannuation, compulsorily, has to earn that money. That worker has to earn that money. So the money you put into superannuation is taken out of that worker's pockets. It means that they have less disposable income than they otherwise would.

The problem with this is that it makes it so difficult for young Australians to save a deposit for their home. We're saying to every young Australian, 'You have to take 9½ per cent of the money that you earn, of the wealth that you create, and put it into a superannuation fund, and you can't touch it until you're 65.' We have to understand that it makes it so much harder for that person to save for a deposit on their house.

The great irony of this current policy is that when someone gets to 65 they can take all their superannuation money and go and buy a house. Surely it would have been better to allow that Australian citizen to use that money to put down a deposit for their house, to help them save throughout their life, because there is nothing like having a mortgage when it comes to a form of compulsory saving. Everyone here in this place that has taken out a mortgage will understand that you scrape, you scrimp and you find that money to pay that mortgage. That is what you do first. For most of us of my age and my generation, that has been the best investment we have ever made. Yet we are denying that to an entire generation of Australians.

Sir Robert Menzies, one of our longest-serving and greatest prime ministers, knew this most of all. I'd like to finish with this quote from the 'Forgotten people' speech:

I do not believe that the real life of this nation is to be found either in great luxury hotels and the petty gossip of so-called fashionable suburbs, or in the officialdom of organised masses. It is to be found in the homes of people who are nameless and unadvertised, and who, whatever their individual religious conviction or dogma, see in their children their greatest contribution to the immortality of their race—

Then, the important line—

The home is the foundation of sanity and sobriety; it is the indispensable condition of continuity; its health determines the health of society as a whole.

He went on:

The material home represents the concrete expression of the habits of frugality and saving "for a home of our own". Your advanced socialist may rage against private property even while he acquires it; but one of the best instincts in us is that which induces us to have one little piece of earth with a house and a garden which is ours; to which we can withdraw, in which we can be among our friends, into which no stranger may come against our will.

It should be the obligation of this parliament to do everything it can to make it as easy as possible for young Australians to buy and own their own home. We are forcing them, through the superannuation system, to put their money aside in an account and not invest in a house until they are 65. That policy is highly mistaken.

See this speech in context