Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Is the Treasurer aware of independent research conducted by the National Farmers Federation which shows that an average Western Australian grain producer will be $36,000 a year worse off under the government's proposed carbon tax, even if agriculture is excluded? Does the Treasurer agree with the National Farmers Federation, which said today that this carbon tax will 'cripple the entire Australian agricultural industry' and should 'be rejected'?

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Labor Party hates farmers.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Canning should be careful. The Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer has the call.

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We do value agriculture as an industry and we support it strongly on this side of the House. There is perhaps no industry which is going to be more affected by dangerous climate change than agriculture. So we know this is yet further evidence of how those on that side of the House simply do not get it when it comes to the science of climate change, but there are farmers out there who truly understand the importance of dealing effectively with dangerous climate change and of putting in place policies to deal with it for the long term so they can grow and prosper and benefit from the Asian century. I personally am very optimistic about the future of agriculture in this country. Just as I am optimistic about the future of coal and iron ore, I am very optimistic about the future of agriculture because as this region grows, as the middle classes grow in Asia, they will demand more of our goods, not just iron ore and coal but our agricultural products. This is yet another reason why we as a nation must deal with dangerous climate change—to support our farmers and to support their families.

Of course, this question is yet another example of just how desperate they have become. They will exaggerate any fact. They will twist any figure in the absence of a detailed design. We will go about constructing our emissions trading scheme in a methodical way. The climate change minister is doing a fantastic job of that. We will go about doing that based on science and based on evidence. We will go about doing it based on modelling because we have got the interests of the country at heart, unlike those opposite, who have got no alternative policies. They came in here today to call for an election, but they do not have an alternative economic policy and they do not have an alternative agricultural policy. This just shows how barren and inept they are.