Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Settlement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to rise to speak in response to the 2012-13 federal budget—Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2012-2013 and related bills—on behalf of the people of Brisbane. My unwavering motivation and commitment is always to be a voice for my constituents in the parliament of Australia, and it is in this capacity that I speak to these bills today. The 2012 federal budget will be primarily remembered for two things. It will be remembered as a class war budget—a budget that Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan tried to use to divide the nation—and it will be remembered as the carbon tax budget—the budget reminding everyone of those infamous words uttered by the Prime Minister before the last election, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' It will act as a monument to the gross breach of trust with the Australian people.

One of the things that have been refreshingly absent from modern-day politics in recent decades has been this rhetoric of class warfare by our leaders. As the Leader of the Opposition has stated recently, Malcolm Fraser did not engage in it, Bob Hawke did not engage in it, Paul Keating did not engage in it, John Howard certainly did not engage in it and, to his absolute credit, the member for Griffith did not engage in it when he was Prime Minister. But this pattern has now changed.

In recent weeks we have seen the leader of our nation stoop back down into the depths of playing divisive class politics. In an interview Julia Gillard stated:

We're—

that is, Labor—

the Labor Party and we make absolutely no apology for saying we are here to serve low and middle income Australians and Mr Abbott is here to serve the rich.

Again, she described the Leader of the Opposition as 'a cosseted silvertail, who needs to get off Sydney's North Shore and talk to some real families'. We saw the member for Banks just earlier continue on with his class warfare rhetoric. This type of rhetoric serves only one purpose—that is, to divide our nation against one another. It is really offensive to my constituents in Brisbane and it is unbefitting of a Prime Minister of this great country of ours to act in this very undignified manner.

I now want to turn to some of the specific issues that directly affect the constituents of Brisbane. The occasional care funding that this government cut and has not recommitted to is a major concern in my electorate. The coalition have committed to restoring funding, should we return to government. However, occasional child care should not be underestimated. It is an important service to our mums and our communities. This government continues to talk about flexibility in child care, but it has absolutely ruined the day-to-day life of many families in the northern suburbs of Brisbane. It is not full-time childcare but it serves a very useful tool for stay-at-home parents who have to deal with necessary appointments. It is also a very valuable service to mums who work part time and also families who work part time. The cost of this service, for the whole of Australia, is approximately $12 million over four years. In terms of a multibillion-dollar budget that is petty cash to this government. The Kitchener Road childcare centre, which I have spoken about many times in this House, has existed for over 40 years and is in danger of closing all because $40,000 was cut from the occasional day care funding program.

I am really disappointed that, in my electorate, Kingsford Smith Drive continues to be passed over by this government and by Infrastructure Australia. There will be 3.5 million people coming into Brisbane airport by 2025. This is the major arterial road that everyone uses to get to the airport. It is the economic hub of Brisbane.

It is the main connector from the city to the airport and the Bruce Highway. As we know, it is Queensland's most important piece of infrastructure. Brisbane City Council is fully committed to this upgrade and has committed $1.5 million to continue studies for the option 2 upgrade, which is a proposal to upgrade the road to six lanes. However, these works cannot go ahead without contributions from the state and federal governments.

My constituents in suburbs such as Wooloowin, Ascot, Clayfield and Hamilton have to put up with the daily inconvenience of this road being consigned to a car park all hours of the day and all hours of the night. There is no peak hour—it is peak hour all day.

I am pleased to see a number of community grants and sporting grants still continuing and still being funded in my electorate. But I am very disappointed at the recent cut to COASIT in Queensland under the Community Partners Program. This welfare organisation does a wonderful job in helping the Italian community. As we know, many people who speak another language quite often revert to their native tongue, particularly when they are suffering from dementia or age related illnesses.

A key part of our liberal philosophy is that the government must help people who cannot help themselves. This organisation richly deserves the funding that it receives from the government. Dina Ranieri and her team do a wonderful job there at Newmarket. I cannot understand how the government can fund the Greek community—I am not saying that the Greek community does not need funding—but have decided not to fund the Italian community. It just beggars belief. I just do not know how they could do that. It will impact on many families who have elderly parents living with them, requiring in-house carer services, particularly for dementia.

I now wish to turn to the economic message and some of the general aspects of the budget. This budget projects a wafer-thin $1.5 billion surplus for the 2012-13 financial year. However, we all know that this will not be delivered. This government has a very sad track record when it comes to the difference between budget projections and budget outcomes. For example, in the current year the deficit has blown out to $44 billion. That is a doubling—I repeat a doubling—of the deficit that was promised just 12 months ago. And, with the projected surplus so small, it only needs a few tiny things to happen such as the terms of trade changing only slightly and the surplus will be completely wiped out.

But what is more interesting is the way that this surplus has been manufactured. Accounting tricks and manoeuvres have been constantly used in this budget. It would have made Houdini a very proud man. The government has made cuts by deferring spending in defence and deferring the commitment to spend 0.5 per cent of gross national income on foreign aid by 2015. A deferral is not a cut; the spending has got to occur eventually.

This government has also brought forward spending of grants to local governments, to the tune of $1.1 billion, into this financial year; therefore not having to account for it in the 2012-13 budget.

Then we have all those wonderful changes to the 'schoolkids cash splash.' We voted against it in this parliament. So we have increased expenditure this year and artificially reduced expenditure next year. Using the graphs from the budget papers, the member for North Sydney demonstrated in his speech to the National Press Club:

We already know that the Government is taking a novel approach to compensation for injury by paying $1.5 billion to people this year before the carbon tax actually starts on 1 July. Although if you believe their ads it has nothing to do with the carbon tax … they just want to give you money.

And further:

We also know that the Coal Sector Jobs Package seems to save jobs this year, give up on jobs next year but then it has a change of heart and starts saving jobs the year after and in subsequent years.

He went on:

It seems as though nation building also takes a holiday in 2013 as the Government brings forward $1.3 billion of spending a few months so it does not appear in next year’s accounts.

And of course there seems to be just one year, the first surplus year, when we don’t have to spend money on clean energy, but every other year we need to spend over $1 billion.

This is clearly a very dodgy surplus based on very dodgy accounting tricks. If a business used these tricks to try to manufacture a profit or loss outcome they would most likely be prosecuted. We also see the spectacle of the government supposedly delivering a surplus yet increasing the debt ceiling by $50 billion. An appropriate analogy for this would be a private business delivering a profit but increasing its borrowings to fund general expenditure. It is simply not sustainable. I might finish this point by quoting something that Margaret Thatcher once said, and she makes a good point:

The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money to spend.

If you want evidence of this—and the members of the government opposite always talk about Europe—you only have to look at the eurozone. If this government continues going down that track it will find out the hard way.

I would now like to discuss the carbon tax. It has been noted by my colleagues that this is the first budget after that fateful day when the Prime Minister blatantly broke her promise to the Australian people. This decision will have a profound impact on the constituents of Brisbane. A survey by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of 850 businesses in Queensland produced some very telling results: over three-quarters of Queensland businesses believe the implementation of the carbon pricing mechanism will have a negative impact on their business. What is even more concerning is that 21 per cent of businesses indicated that the energy increases arising from the carbon tax will have a critical impact on their overall business viability. The commentary from the business community about this budget has been scathing because they know that business, and particularly small business, is the big loser in this budget. Small business in and around Brisbane is struggling.

I wish to turn to the impact of the carbon tax on council rates in our beautiful city. The Brisbane City Council is the largest council in Australia and has a budget bigger than that of Tasmania. It has also been named by the government as one of the top 250 polluters. Consequently, the carbon tax will cost the Brisbane City Council approximately $65 million over four years. This is despite the fact that Councillor Graham Quirk, the Lord Mayor, and his council currently purchase 100 per cent green power for their buildings, they offset all their carbon emissions from public transport and vehicle fleets, they are planting two million trees, and they have protected more than 500 hectares of bushland from development over the past four years by bringing that land into public ownership. The Lord Mayor recently stated that council will be left with no choice but to pass Labor's carbon tax straight on to ratepayers. He also revealed that, between 1990 and 2010, Brisbane City Council more than halved its annual carbon emissions from 500,000 tonnes to 220,000 tonnes. The members for Lilley, Petrie, Moreton, Oxley and Rankin should hang their heads in shame for voting for the carbon tax, which will cost their constituents dearly each and every year.

I also want to raise the issue of single persons and, in particular, the many young people who live in my electorate. Unless they receive some form of government welfare payment they will receive minimal reward for the contribution they make and particularly for the increasing costs of living they will face under this carbon tax. These are not rich people. These are ambitious young people trying to get ahead and succeed in life and they are being hit by this government at every turn. They have recently been hit by the news that their health insurance costs will go up. These are young people living in New Farm, Teneriffe and Newstead, many of whom are single Australians working hard to get ahead.

The coalition has a strong vision and plan to deliver hope, reward and opportunity for all Australians. As outlined in detail by the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Treasurer, our plan is based on improving public finances, lowering and simplifying taxation, boosting productivity and engaging more closely with Asia and our region. As we get closer to the next election our team will further outline our plans to improve the nation. Australians deserve better. They are crying out for competence and leadership from the national government. Only the coalition has the track record and the vision to deliver that.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2012-2013 and cognate bills, which help create a budget that continues the Australian government's tradition of sound economic management, assisting those who are most in need and supporting those sections of the economy struggling under the pressures of a high exchange rate and a two-speed economy.

This budget has taken the tough decisions needed to balance the books. Its core theme of economic responsibility stands in stark contrast to the shamelessly shallow budget reply delivered by the Leader of the Opposition—an unflattering commentary both on his economic illiteracy and on the quality of modern-day political debate where spin doctors come up with one single proposal designed to occupy the airwaves for 30 seconds and draw attention away from the absence of any serious, detailed, costed budget alternative. On this occasion it was the proposal regarding languages other than English, but frankly it could have been anything. Anything will suffice so long as it distracts attention from the total absence of numbers in the opposition leader's response—a budget reply without numbers or figures. It reminded me of the pub with no beer!

The opposition leader treats the Australian people as fools prepared to trust him as Prime Minister without the faintest idea of which government programs and benefits he would keep and which ones he would axe. The opposition leader's budget reply shows the Liberal Party is still besotted by the free market and globalisation. But, as John Quiggin has identified in his book Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk Among Us, the assumptions behind neoclassical economics have been laid bare by the global financial crisis. The extra investment generated by more favourable tax treatment is supposed to be allocated efficiently so as to produce higher rates of long-term economic growth, but the economic crisis has shown that success was built on sand. Much of the extra investment went into real estate or into speculative ventures that collapsed when the bubble burst. Having cut taxes drastically, governments were left with inadequate financial resources to convince now-cautious investors that their bonds were a safe investment. More generally, the global financial crisis has exposed the view that incomes accruing to different groups in the community are an accurate reflection of their marginal contribution.

The opposition leader talked about deficit and debt. He did not tell us that Howard government policies resulted in the spending of 94 per cent of a $330 billion increase in tax revenue from 2004-05 from the mining boom mark 1. This in turn forced the hand of the Reserve Bank, which pushed interest rates higher to contain inflation.

The opposition leader raised the deficits of the past four years. Again, he conveniently overlooked the global financial crisis, and the effective measures undertaken by the government to protect Australia from that crisis. The OECD has found that Australia's fiscal stimulus measures were amongst the most effective in the OECD in terms of stimulating economic activity and supporting employment. The Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz lauded the Labor government's stimulus spending, saying:

Not only was it the right amount, it was extraordinarily well structured, with careful attention to what would stimulate the economy in the shorter run, the medium term and the long term.

When I look around the world, it was, I think, probably the best-designed stimulus program in the world and you should be happy that in fact it worked in exactly the way it was designed to work.

In fact we are in a better budgetary position today than we would have been had unemployment risen, as it would have done had Joe Hockey been Treasurer. The budget is in better shape than it would have been because the largest item on the revenue side—the pay-as-you-go taxes—has defied the trend of falling revenue. Personal tax collections are, in fact, stronger today than Treasury thought they would be at the depths of the GFC panic in early 2009.

The opposition talks about net public debt. The budget papers outline that net public debt will peak in 2011-12 at 9.6 per cent of gross domestic product. Most countries, and every large Western economy, would love this result. By comparison the average net debt position of the major advanced economies is expected to be around 93 per cent of GDP in 2016 and 2017. Our public debt is trivial compared to the OECD average. Other countries would love to be in our shoes.

The strength of our public finances is a key reason behind Australia receiving a AAA credit rating with a stable outlook from all three major rating agencies for the first time in our history. We are one of only eight countries that currently meet this standard. Returning to surplus sends a strong message of confidence to the rest of the world during a period of heightened global uncertainty.

I want to particularly welcome those initiatives that support manufacturing, invest in the nation's universities and enhance skills training. The pattern of growth in the Australian economy is uneven, with the resources and resource related parts of the economy growing strongly. Business investment as a percentage of GDP is expected to reach a record, with companies planning to invest $120 billion in the resources sector in 2012-13, or around 150 per cent more than two years ago. The resources and resources-related sectors of the economy are likely to average growth of nearly nine per cent per year over the next two years, accounting for 15 to 20 per cent of total GDP. Let me note in passing that this makes a nonsense of those predictions of doom and gloom in the mining and resources sector over the mining tax and the carbon price made by some big mining businesses and their Liberal and National Party puppets.

In stark contrast, the non-mining part of the Australian economy is forecast to expand at an average annual rate of just two per cent over the same period. Manufacturing is facing challenging conditions, which I know of first hand from the recent pressures on components manufacturers in my own seat of Wills. Manufacturing employed 997,000 Australians in November 2010, but this fell to 945,000 by November 2011, a fall of over 50,000 workers or over five per cent of the industry's workforce.

Although the relative decline of Australian manufacturing has been a multidecade trend, its contraction has accelerated in recent years. Eighty-six thousand manufacturing jobs were lost between mid-2001 and mid-2011. It would appear the loss of manufacturing jobs is gathering pace. Total employment in the industry fell below one million in May 2010 for the first time in decades. Of the 86,000 net jobs lost in the industry in the past decade, 69,000 were lost between February and August last year. This is a troubling picture. The decline in manufacturing's share of employment has been more rapid in Australia than in most other developed countries.

The ACTU has concluded that it is conceivable that Australia will soon have fewer workers employed in manufacturing, as a proportion of total employment, than any other developed country. I regard it as incredibly important that we stop this from happening.

There has been plenty of research to show that manufacturing is essential for economies. Manufacturing provides better-paid jobs, on average, than service industries, is a big source of innovation, helps to reduce trade deficits and creates opportunities in the growing 'clean' economy, such as recycling and green energy. These are all good reasons for a country to engage in it.

Technological innovation is important to growth in manufacturing. Advances in computer integrated manufacturing can increase productivity by saving businesses time. Increased efficiency is not the only benefit of computer integrated manufacturing. In addition, Australian innovators can license their technology for local or overseas use. Improvements in CIM can also reduce geographic constraints, allowing Australian companies to operate more effectively through global supply chains. The NBN is an important development for further improvements to computer integrated manufacturing.

In the budget the Australian government has recognised the importance of innovation in manufacturing by investing $30 million over four years to establish a Manufacturing Technology Innovation Centre to bring our brightest researchers and manufacturers together to drive innovation through new and improved industrial products and processes. It will establish sectoral collaboration to support major manufacturers, small and medium enterprises, industry bodies and research agencies to create solutions in their production lines. It will help them realise new market opportunities through harnessing new technologies, business processes and technical knowledge.

The Manufacturing Technology Innovation Centre is consistent with the Prime Minister's Taskforce on Manufacturing, and demonstrates this government's commitment to facilitating the transition of manufacturing to 21st century technologies and processes. This stands in stark contrast to the opposition, who would pull the rug from underneath the manufacturing sector and allow it to wither and die. Manufacturing is important to our economy. Without the initiatives of the Labor government, the high Australian dollar will see manufacturing continue to retreat, and we will end up with a two-state economy. Queensland and Western Australia will benefit from the mining boom, but other states, like my state of Victoria, will not.

The budget's $714 million loss carry-back scheme will help support businesses that are not in the mining fast lane of the economy. In 2012-13, companies will be able to carry back losses incurred in that year of up to $1 million so they get a refund against tax previously paid. From 2013-14, companies will be able to carry back losses for two years. This means a manufacturing, tourism, education, retail and construction business which is currently profitable and paying tax will know that, if it undertakes investments in 2012-13 that initially result in a loss, they will get a tax refund of up to $300,000 when they lodge their 2012-13 tax return. This measure will provide assistance to nearly 110,000 companies.

Higher education teaching and learning will also see an increased funding commitment, of $38.8 billion over four years from 2012-13. Government funding to the university sector in 2011 was around 30 per cent higher than in 2007. Training more students will help Australia meet emerging skills shortages and deliver a highly skilled, productive and innovative workforce.

There is one announcement in the budget which I cannot in all good conscience overlook and with which I strongly disagree. The government has increased the permanent migrant worker program from 125,000 to over 129,000. This is heading in absolutely the wrong direction. We should be cutting the number of migrant workers, returning it to the level it was in the mid-1990s—around 25,000. This is because, firstly, Australia has big cost-of-living and congestion problems arising from our rapid population growth, and increases the number of foreign workers only makes these problems worse.

Secondly, it is not true that we are short of workers. We have 600,000 people out of work, and the budget papers indicate that unemployment will go to 5.5 per cent this year—that is, it will rise. Furthermore, it is government policy—and I totally support it—to lift our workforce participation rate, bringing people who are presently on pensions into the workforce. We are short of jobs rather than short of people. The idea that we are short of workers is wrong.

To give the House an example of what I am on about, there has been a debate between Andrew Forrest and Gina Rinehart about where workers for their mining companies should come from. Gina Rinehart wants to bring them in from overseas. Andrew Forrest wants to find local workers, particularly Aboriginal workers. I think Andrew Forrest is right and Gina Rinehart is wrong. But, for as long as we continue to run a massive program of migrant workers—permanent migrant worker numbers are up from 24,000 in 1996 to over 129,000 now, and temporary migrant worker numbers are up from less than 40,000 a decade ago to more than 90,000 last year—Gina Rinehart's view will prevail, and the mines will employ foreign workers, not local ones.

In conclusion, the 2012-13 budget spreads the benefits of the mining boom to help families on low and middle incomes with the cost of living and provide much needed help to small business while still balancing the books as we need to do. This budget also supports businesses in meeting the challenges and opportunities of the mining boom through a loss carry-back reform, while support for skills training and our universities will help us adapt to the structural changes in our economy and facilitate innovation. It continues the foundation for lower inflation and lower interest rates than we had under the opposition, and lower unemployment than we would have if they were to be returned to government. I commend the bills to the House.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my speech on the appropriation bills at this time last year, I said that the Labor government has a tradition of big deficits, borrowing, debt and more taxes. Nothing has changed. This year Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2012-2013 and related bills bring no improvement—simply the addition of fake surpluses. This would have to be the most misrepresentative budget in living memory. The proposed surplus next year is a fraud perpetrated on the people through sleight-of-hand accounting. The shuffling of expenditure between financial years has allowed the Treasurer to shift his actual budget deficit next year into this financial year's $44 billion deficit, simply to hide it. It is deceitful accounting meant to present a misleading outcome to the Australian community.

In addition, the projection of surpluses in forward estimate years relies on extremely optimistic projections of world and Australian economic growth. I said a year ago that Australia would have its biggest debt ever, of $107 billion. Well, the government has piled more debt upon more debt, to a peak net debt of $145 billion in 2013-14. The gross debt, as measured by total interest-bearing liabilities, will reach $293 billion in the same year.

This debt binge—that is what it is—has meant that the government has tried for the second year in a row to sneak the lifting of its credit limit past the parliament. There was no mention of this in the Treasurer's budget address, no mention of the $300 billion—a deliberate omission. The rise from $250 billion to $300 billion will be needed to cover Labor's debt debacle, a legacy it is leaving for the next generation to pay off. At this government's current budget surplus projections, Australians will be paying off this debt for nearly a century, on the government's own projections. Effectively, as I see it, the Labor government has just taken out Australia's first national intergenerational loan, with taxpayers paying up to $8 billion a year in interest.

Every Australian should be thinking about what that $8 billion could fund instead of Labor's debt. It could have been invested in future-proofing the Australian economy through strategic infrastructure, but instead it will continue to be spent trying to future-proof Labor's election agenda. Investment in regional infrastructure could have allowed further growth and development in the mining and agricultural sectors—the sectors that underpin the existing and near-future Australian economies. Sadly, regional Australia is not merely the victim of government neglect; it seems to be the victim of an assault: the government's carbon tax—that is what it is—for regional Australia. The carbon tax is the tax that the government cannot even seem to mention any more. It will hit rural and regional Australians—like those in my electorate—the hardest.

This is a tax that will drive investment, industry and jobs offshore. It is meant to make doing business in Australia far less competitive than those we compete with. It is Labor's special tax, coming from every power point. If you are watching, Labor's carbon tax is coming at you, in every home and business in Australia. It is a tax that will see Australia's emissions rise, not fall. It is a tax that will hit struggling regional areas hardest because it will tax transport—rail, air and marine transport immediately, and road transport from 1 July 2014.

In 2014, when road freight operators lose 6.858c a litre from their diesel fuel rebate to pay for the carbon tax, the cost to transport almost everything in rural and regional Australia will go up, and regional people and businesses will carry a disproportionate cost as a result. It is a tax on rural and regional Australia. Have no doubt about it: transport costs equal a tax on rural and regional Australia. That tax is expected to cost the transport industry and its customers $510 million in 2014-15 alone—and that is on top of the recent 2.4c a litre rise in the diesel fuel excise. This just means higher costs and greater impacts in regional areas.

The government must also be held to account over its funding for aged care, specifically in regional and rural areas. It is too little, too late. We know that the government changes will not start until after July 2014. We know that as the baby boomer generation heads into retirement and then into care, the numbers and the sheer level of future need should cause us all concern.

It is a system already under stress. Aged-care providers are struggling to cope. This is evidenced by the thousands of beds made available by the government but not taken up by the industry. This is happening at a time when the demand for those beds has never been higher. But many providers would lose money on each and every bed, so they are not being taken up and are not being provided to the community. This was recognised in the Productivity Commission's report on aged care. The government response to this, in spite of its election promises, has been manifestly inadequate. The government is paying $8 billion a year in interest on debt rather than supporting aged care and the disability sector. Despite the glossy brochures and glib rhetoric, it is not a plan to manage the future aged-care demands in Australia. It is only a poorly crafted, stop-gap measure that alone will do little to fix the problem or address future needs.

The policy of keeping people in their own homes as long as possible is one that has been supported by the Liberal Party for decades, and was driven and delivered for us in government by, among others, the member for Mackellar. Despite the government grabbing hold of this and promoting a good Liberal policy, this alone is not enough. Many of those older Australians who remain in their homes with support services will eventually still need residential care. In many cases it becomes an issue of safety and security, with much greater monitoring required in order to ensure their welfare.

Under the current plan we will see older Australians entering into residential aged care, much frailer and requiring much higher levels of care. Clearly, the government has no real plan in place to manage the projected influx of more high-care patients. The Gillard government is simply doing what it has done in so many other areas; it has taken the easy option now and will leave future governments and future generations of Australians to deal with a problem they have created. This is the way of Labor. Aged-care providers and community members have not been fooled by the government's aged-care announcements.

As is also the way of Labor, those who have struggled to save and who have built assets to cover their own aged-care costs—self-funded retirees—have been the target of the government. Everyone except full-pay pensioners will now pay more for aged care. Once again, the Labor government will use means testing to punish those who have worked hard, taken personal responsibility and saved—in this case, for their own retirement.

The government has used a sleight of hand, announcing a $3.7 billion aged-care package, but hiding the truth that only 15 per cent of that is actually new funding. This is not a genuine aged-care plan for the future and certainly not what Labor promised at the election.

Another major failing of this budget is its abject failure to do anything to improve the nation's productivity. It is a budget focused on economic redistribution but not economic growth. Given the uncertainty in Europe, many of the world's economies are coming to a crossroads—some because of decisions to redistribute economic wealth instead of growing economic wealth. In Australia we must build our national economy instead of simply building Labor's national debt. This can only be achieved by improving our productivity, which has been undermined during the period of the Rudd and Gillard governments.

This government's failure to manage the economy is most damaging to the small business sector. The people who are struggling to get ahead are carrying a deadweight government. Small business in Australia is simply asking for the opportunity to succeed, free from excessive government red tape, burden and interference. Every small business will be hit by the carbon tax in one form or another. Some may be able to pass on this cost, but hundreds of businesses will not be able to pass on these costs. So this is a really serious issue in my electorate.

I noticed, in the government's liable entities list last week, that many of those who will pay the carbon tax are from my electorate—businesses such as the Water Corporation; the Griffin Coal Mining Company; Simcoa Operations; Millennium Inorganic Chemicals; Iluka; Synergy; Verve Energy; Yancoal, the new owners of Premier Coal; Dampier Bunbury Pipeline, Worsley Alumina, Alinta Energy; and, further in the south-west, Alcoa Australia. These are the companies that will have to pay the carbon tax directly, but every small business will pay it in one form or another. In talking about this, I would like to warn companies in my electorate—and I have done this previously—that the government is not going to advise you if you are liable to pay the carbon tax. The government has placed this responsibility and liability firmly on industry. So there are other businesses around the south-west—

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 34. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting and the member for Forrest will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.