Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Those were very interesting comments from the previous speaker, but I rise today to speak about the damage that this government is set to inflict on the constituents in the electorate of Hasluck, which I represent. The carbon tax is a $9 billion a year tax which every Australian will pay through their electricity and gas bills. In the first four years it will total $36 billion. Despite this poor policy decision, Australia's emissions will actually increase from 578 million tonnes to 621 million tonnes by 2020. Instead of reducing Australia's emissions, firms will have to purchase 94 million tonnes of carbon permits overseas each year by 2020. The government estimates a rise in electricity prices of up to 10 per cent in five years, although the electricity producers are predicting 20 per cent increases over the next 18 months. Families still have to turn on the lights, cook the dinner, do the washing, run a computer and have heating and cooling. Small businesses face the same price measures but will have no option but to pass on the cost to their customers, forcing prices up in general. The carbon tax comes at the worst possible time for manufacturers, who are struggling against a high Australian dollar, while their overseas competitors do not have this specific increased cost pressure.

I have received hundreds of emails and telephone messages from the community of Hasluck. Let me read out just two quotes from emails that have been sent to me in the last week:

I am a Service widow, surviving on a very low service DFRDB pension … The carbon tax will see the end of any small amount of spare money I can find. Why should I be paying this when there is no reason for Australia to have this tax?

Also I will not be one of the ones compensated for the tax.

I don't speak up normally, but my very existence is now in question.

That was from a pensioner in the north of Hasluck. These are pretty damning words which show how, with the heartlessness of the Gillard government, no heart and no compassion prevails. The next quote comes from someone in the far south of my electorate:

As your constituent, I am writing to you to demand a repeal of the unnecessary, destructive tax on carbon dioxide. This tax will hurt me and my family, as electricity prices go up, the price of goods will go up, and jobs in our local community will be lost. This tax will do nothing to help the environment and is based on a lie. I call upon you to publicly call for its repeal.

As I have said before, there are literally hundreds of similar emails or letters that I could read out today.

Small businesses are also very concerned, for many reasons. Firstly, where is their compensation for this tax? Where is their money coming from every week to offset the increases in utility prices? It will not be coming. That is why the costs will be passed on to their customers—and this is an environment that is hardly conducive to extra burdens being placed on our small businesses. Another cause of concern is the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which will see the government use taxpayers' money to buy shares in green projects which the private sector will not back. How many government members have invested their super funds in clean energy projects? Green small businesses setting up will get the government handouts to launch their businesses in my electorate, despite the possibility of not being a financially viable project or having already been knocked back by a bank for finance. What a great way of getting a risk-free loan when credible financial institutions will not fund these initiatives. This creates an unlevel playing field and further hurts small businesses that are already under siege.

The European ETS has raised only $500 million a year, while Labor's carbon tax will raise more in three months that Europe's did in five years, according to the Weekend Australianof 9 July 2011. With a population of just over 500 million, the EU scheme raised just $1 per person. With a population of less than 23 million, Julia Gillard's carbon tax will raise more than $400 per person per year. Meanwhile, the US, Canada, India, China and Japan have all made it clear that they are not moving to a broad-based carbon tax model like Australia's.

Whatever spin and deceit comes from the government, the people of Hasluck and around the nation know that the next election will be a referendum on the carbon tax. If elected, the coalition will repeal the carbon tax as soon as possible. In contrast to this pie-in-the-sky policy of the Labor Party, the coalition's direct action plan will deliver on Australia's commitment to a five per cent reduction in emissions by 2020. It is a simpler way and delivers better environmental outcomes without a carbon tax that drives up prices for families and businesses in Hasluck.

Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I agree with the constituent quoted by the member for Hasluck that her very existence is in danger, but not for the reasons stated—rather, because of dangerous climate change. Next week we come to a juncture where we will for the first time put a price on carbon and, in so doing, move Australia along the path of innovation and sustainability and away from the old road of fossil fuel dependence and degeneration. The driving imperative for the carbon price has been clear for some time: it is the need to reduce Australia's carbon emissions as part of a shared international commitment to global emission reductions. It is aimed at limiting the increase in average global temperatures by the end of this century to two degrees above pre-industrial levels. Beyond that level of global temperature increase we know that the consequences will be grave and extremely difficult to mitigate.

This is not an unlikely hypothetical scenario; current commitments, including Australia's, are putting us on track to global warming of at least four degrees. Consider the impacts of the 0.8 degree temperature rise that we are already seeing in Australia. Extreme weather events are at the forefront of our national consciousness. Residents of New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland are still picking up the pieces after large-scale flooding and cyclones. In WA, extended periods of hot, dry weather and low rainfall have led to out-of-control bushfires. We are also seeing coral bleaching on our reefs, species migrations and so on. If this is the effect of a 0.8 degree temperature rise, you do not have to be NASA's head climate scientist to see that the effect of a fivefold increase in temperatures by the end of the century will be catastrophic.

In March, the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology released the State of the climate 2012 report, confirming the global warming trend based on ground, ocean and satellite based observations. In late 2011, leading international climate scientists attended the Four Degrees or More? conference at Monash University. The final report from that conference documents projected and expected devastating impacts of an average temperature increase of four degrees by 2100 on the economy, on terrestrial species and ecosystems, on marine and coastal environments, on agriculture and food security, on human health, on cities and towns and on regional security, where it is expected that drought and food shortages, sea level rise and storms will dislocate hundreds of millions of people already referred to by some as 'climate change refugees'. Across Asia and the Pacific, in such a situation there will be no stopping the boats.

Earth and palaeoclimate scientist Dr Andrew Glikson of ANU has noted that what is significant is the pace at which the climate is changing. It is changing so fast species will not be able to adapt. He has written that the rate of greenhouse gas rise of about plus-two parts per million CO2 per year is the fastest rate identified in the geological records of the last 65 million years. This is underlined too by the 2011 UN Environment Program report, which states:

There is alarming evidence that important tipping points, leading to irreversible changes in major ecosystems and the planetary climate system, may already have been reached or passed.

The irresistible rationale for introducing a price on carbon is that carbon has a cost. The urgency is founded on the fact that climate change is occurring and will deliver environmental, social, health and economic impacts that must be avoided.

The exhaustive social and economic analysis in this country and elsewhere shows that it will be both more effective and cheaper if we act to interdict as much of the consequences of global warming as early as we possibly can. That view is shared by 89 developed and developing countries, which together make up more than 80 per cent of global emissions, and that also make up approximately 90 per cent of the global economy. The Australian government accepts our part of the challenge. With approximately 1.5 per cent of global emissions, there are only 10 countries contributing more greenhouse gas to the atmosphere than Australia and, of course, we contribute the most on a per capita basis.

It is absolutely right that a country like Australia, with a strong and well-developed high-carbon economy, and with a tradition of making key contributions to efforts that require international cooperation, now play its part in the urgent global effort to address climate change. But it is also urgent that we put Australia in a position to participate in the burgeoning renewable energy and energy efficiency economy. Total global investment in renewable power and fuels reached $211 billion in 2010, a 32 per cent increase on 2009 and approximately 5½ times the investment made in 2004. While the steep climb in global renewable investment is very welcome, it is also a clear reminder that the world is moving very fast in this area, and we would be kidding ourselves if we thought Australia was leading the charge or even going out on a limb here.

I think it is vitally important to emphasise that both the economics and the science are guiding the government's actions on the carbon price. Recently American scientist Daniel Nocera noted that every year our burning fossil fuels will release a million years of photosynthesis. By putting a price on carbon we are making that step across the line that divides a wasteful, irresponsible and dangerous past from a forward-looking, inventive and sustainable future, and 1 July is an important milestone in that regard. (Time expired)

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was very interested to hear the comments of the member for Reid tonight. My advice to him would be not to sell his coat. Last month here in Canberra was the coldest May in 50 years. Across the Tasman, in Christchurch, only two weeks ago they had their coldest day ever recorded—going back to 1860.

However, that is not what I rose to speak about tonight. The question I wanted to pose to the House is: if you deliberately wanted to undermine our nation's prosperity and if you deliberately wanted to inflict harm upon the Australian nation, what would you do? The very first thing you would do is attack our national competitive advantage—our low-cost electricity—and that is what this government plans to do with its carbon tax. By imposing the world's largest carbon tax upon the Australian nation, this government is undermining the very foundations of our prosperity. We have the absolute absurdity that, under Labor's carbon tax, Australian coal can be shipped to any one of the massive new coal-fired power plants that China is building to drive prosperity in China. But, if we use that same piece of coal here in an Australian power station, it would be subject to Labor's carbon tax. This policy will simply place Australian businesses at a competitive disadvantage and drive jobs offshore for absolutely zero environmental gain.

The second thing you would do, if you wanted to undermine our national prosperity and if you wanted to deliberately inflict harm upon the Australian nation, is peddle the Hollywood fantasy that we can drive our economy with wind turbines and solar panels. These sources of power will only ever be tokenistic and their use cannot change the temperature of the globe.

The third thing you would do, if you wanted to undermine our national prosperity, is make an all-out assault upon small business—and that is exactly what this tax does. It is a vicious and destructive tax that will be imposed upon hundreds of thousands of the small businesses which provide most of the jobs for people in Australia.

The fourth thing you would do, if you wanted to damage our nation and undermine our national prosperity, is seek to destroy the dream of home ownership for the average Australian citizen—and that is exactly what this government plans to do. The level of home ownership in Australia rose sharply after 1947, when only 53 per cent of Australian families owned their own home. The ownership rate for families continued to rise steadily during the Howard years. But, as the recent census has revealed, there has been a shocking reversal of the trend in home ownership. There has been a decline in home ownership under this Labor government which is believed to be the sharpest on record outside a recession. Labor are set to make this situation worse, with the Housing Industry Association estimating that the carbon tax will add $5,000 to $6,000 to the cost of the average home. Simply put, this carbon tax will make it harder for the average Australian to own their own home.

The fifth thing you would do, if you sought to damage our nation and undermine our national prosperity, is peddle fear and doom to our children and make them pessimistic about the future—and that, as we have heard in tonight's speeches, is exactly what this government is doing. They have used propaganda to indoctrinate our children about an impending climate apocalypse in which all the polar bears will die and millions of people will drown as a result of rising seas levels—and in which those left alive are going to experience endless drought and violent storms. This is exactly what this government is doing through the scaremongering of its climate change commissioner.

Finally, if you wanted to damage Australia, you would undermine trust in our political system. Again, that is exactly what this Labor government has done through the breaking of the promise made by the Prime Minister, in the dying days before the last election, that there would be no carbon tax under a government she led.

In short, if you wanted to damage the Australian nation and undermine our national prosperity, you would be supporting the policies of this Labor government and you would be here in this chamber supporting this carbon tax. So it is no surprise that, on the anniversary of the coup d'etat inspired by Labor's faceless men which deposed the member for Griffith, we see most members of the government, rather than having celebrations and merriment, walking around the House as though they were on their way to a wake. (Time expired)