Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to talk about an area of government policy that is causing great distress and anxiety to the people of my electorate and that is the world's biggest carbon tax. I received an email this Monday from a constituent, Barry, living in Benalla in north-east Victoria. Barry wrote to me and said:

I am an early retiree. After working all my life in a stressful occupation I retired at 56. I am totally dependent on my superannuation of approximately $36,000 for my wife and myself. I'm not old enough yet to get the Commonwealth seniors card—

which is 65 years—

consequently I am in a tax-free position. I have not structured my stories to enable me to get the dole or any other such benefit. I received not one cent of stimulus money a few years ago and now we are to miss out on any carbon tax compensation. It seems unfair that we have to be in the two per cent of families earning up to $150,000 that won't get any assistance. (Swan claims 98 per cent will get it.) Is there some method that I'm not aware of that will enable us to get the compensation? I have paid my share of taxes for over 40 years that I was working full-time.

Well, unfortunately for Barry, this ill-conceived, cobbled-together desperate price that the Prime Minister paid to the Greens in order to retain her job—all she had to do was throw them a few carrots after all—gave us the world's biggest carbon tax. Now we have constituents in my electorate like Barry. He is 62, so he does not get the seniors card for another three years and, because he does not have a seniors card, he is not entitled to get government assistance under the carbon tax. Because Barry only makes $36,000 a year to support himself and his wife, he does not get taxed and therefore will not be supported for tax cuts. So, Barry, in my electorate, in Benalla, will be paying higher energy bills, higher grocery bills and higher council rates. Yet those on the other side refuse to acknowledge that when times are tough, when the cost of living is going up, there will be people who cannot afford it and who will suffer even more because of this government's poor judgment and this Prime Minister's poor judgment and vanity. Not only will people like Barry be affected but also jobs in my electorate will be affected.

We have seen statistics that have come out recently from the ABS which show that, since the carbon tax was mooted, we have lost one manufacturing job every 15 minutes. I see good businesses in my electorate that have gone to great effort to remain competitive, to restructure, and are going to be hit with the carbon tax. A leading business, D&R Henderson in Benalla, is an absolute pillar of the Benalla community and an important employer of 200 staff manufacturing particle board and operating a sawmill. This is what the company has had to say:

All the financial benefit we gained from our restructure is going to be taken away from us by the impact of the carbon tax. It's going to cost us millions of dollars. When the tax kicks in in July everyone knows the cost of living will go up and the cost of deliveries will go up. Business has never seen it worse than it is now. We are competing with businesses in Asia that don't have a carbon tax. The way the government is behaving is like a soap opera. It makes us think: why bother when they, the government, just want to clobber us over the head.

Well, that question is being asked by businesses right across the country. I have an abattoir in my electorate and they have said: 'The business runs on tight margins, margins that cannot afford to have to pay an extra one or two million a year.' The abattoir, Norvic, is in Wodonga and they are exporters and employers of locals and they will be hit. Does the government care? Absolutely not.

We have seen other businesses, wineries, saying that they are going to stop growing grapes because the carbon tax is the last straw. What more does this government need— (Time expired)