Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, as it is my first opportunity to address you, I want to congratulate you on your election to the role of the Speaker. I know that you will serve this parliament well.

My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency and Minister for Industry and Innovation. Minister, the carbon price has now been in place for more than three months. What are the facts about its impact so far on the Australian economy, and, when it comes to tackling dangerous climate change, why is it important that we rely on facts and not fear?

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you to the member for Page for her question. The carbon price mechanism has now been in place, as the member for Page indicated, for in excess of 100 days. Of course, before it started on 1 July, the Leader of the Opposition made countless dire predictions of the plague and the pestilence and destruction that would be wrought upon the Australian economy, Australian businesses and Australian households. Not a single one of them was based in fact, and every single one of them has been proven to be completely mendacious.

It is worth revisiting some of these dire predictions that the Leader of the Opposition has made. Whyalla, of course, was to be wiped off the map, and we had a question earlier from the member for Grey about Whyalla and the region. The Mayor of Whyalla in fact has recently indicated that the town is 'kicking goals'. In fact, jobs and investment are growing.

The Leader of the Opposition predicted that whole other regions of the country would be destroyed. Gladstone would be destroyed. There is $42 billion worth of investment in LNG alone going into Gladstone now. What a ridiculous proposition from a senior political leader in this country!

He predicted the death of the coal industry, but in 2012 it is predicted that our steaming coal exports will increase by no less than 12 per cent to 165 million tonnes—in this calendar year. In fact, in my home town we are discussing the development of a further coal loader because of the demand for coal. So much for that one.

The Leader of the Opposition predicted the death of the steel industry, the wiping out of the steel industry in this country, but what have we recently seen? A takeover bid led by Posco, a South Korean company, for OneSteel, now known as Arrium—a takeover bid for one of the companies that the Leader of the Opposition said would be completely annihilated by carbon pricing.

He predicted the death of manufacturing. There have been 9,000 extra manufacturing jobs since 1 July—9,000 more in the manufacturing industry. The Leader of the Opposition predicted unimaginable price increases, but the RBA could not find them, from the minutes of the last meeting that the RBA published. And of course we have seen the electricity price claims repeated here today.

The trouble is that they do not even do enough work to know that these are tariffs which are published in Western Australia in circumstances where the Barnett government has increased tariffs by 60 per cent and where the regulated tariff for carbon is 9.13 per cent. Take the effort to read it on the bill before you give that a run next time. Everything that has been said has been completely mendacious. (Time expired)