Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Mackellar proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The adverse effect of the carbon tax particularly on senior Australians.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In calling for this discussion of a matter of public importance today—it being the adverse effect of the carbon tax, particularly on senior Australians—I do so wearing my hat as the shadow minister for seniors. There has never been a minister for seniors in this parliament before. We have had ministers for youth, we have had them for children—we have had them for all sorts of groups. But never before have senior Australians been recognised in this way, which was an acknowledgement by the Leader of the Opposition of the importance of this group. For the purposes of the portfolio responsibility, seniors are those people who are over the age of 50 and, in fact, constitute 40 per cent of all voters. It is important to note in this debate that the impact on senior Australians can be particularly cruel, particularly on those who have retired or are on pensions and those who are self-funded retirees, because those people are on fixed incomes and do not have the elasticity of looking forward to an increase in salary to make up for the imposition of the carbon tax.

The carbon tax is essentially a tax on electricity. And it is designed specifically to see people use less electricity. It is designed to lower the standard of living, particularly for those people who cannot afford to meet the increases. The stories that we hear—for instance, of people delivering meals-on-wheels through the winter to people in receipt of the age pension and finding those people in bed, not because they are ill but because they are cold—are true stories. These are people who are forced not to turn on the switch to activate a heater or, in some cases, even lights, to the degree that there have been some suspicious fires that have been caused by people resorting to candles because they felt they could not afford electric light. That is not the Australia that my father and his generation fought in World War II to deliver to this country. The idea that we should not consider having electric light and electric heating as automatic rights in an Australian household is something quite foreign to people who recognise the sacrifice that was made to ensure we lived in a free country.

It is important to realise that the impact of electricity prices, particularly on people who are self-employed or who work in small business, is also very relevant to seniors, because people who are self-employed or work in small business will work much longer than those who work in big business. The fact of the matter is that you can find people who are shopkeepers, accountants or lawyers—people who are maintaining an active work-life well into their 70s and 80s in private practice and yet are being hit very hard by this electricity impost.

I will give you an example of a sole practitioner in a law firm who has a very substantial practice but has just seen a quarterly electricity bill rise from $1,000 to $1,500 for the quarter. And the likelihood of that continuing to rise, of course, under this carbon tax is well known.

Let us look at how it operates, because it is a tax that is both cascading and compounding. It gets into the nooks and crannies of every aspect of your life. Everything we do in a civilised country depends on electricity. It is the difference between a First World country and a Third World country.

When Bob Brown was here and in cahoots with Prime Minister Gillard, they wanted us all to live in a cave with a candle. But now that we have Senator Milne, she would really rather we did without the candle!

The fact of the matter is that your life is meant to become lesser. When the Prime Minister talks about a 'gold standard' for infrastructure to deliver electricity, what on earth is she talking about? Does she want a silver standard? A bronze standard? A lead standard? How many blackouts would be acceptable to her? The fact of the matter is that, on previous occasions, this same Prime Minister has complained about there not being sufficient infrastructure. And yet when the infrastructure is built, in order that communities have electricity and do not have blackouts, it is spurned as being 'gold plated'. Well, there are plenty of instances I can think of in the world of countries where there is simply not enough infrastructure. There are plenty of countries where the elites will take the power and the people will be poor. This is not the sort of country we want here.

But let us look at how this tax works. The tax is imposed on the so-called emitters, or generators, of electricity. It is imposed on the creation of the good, the service, of electricity. On every transaction that occurs between the tax being paid and it being paid by the final consumer, again the tax is paid. So it becomes a tax on a tax on a tax on a tax, and then the GST is paid on it as well. It is quite unlike the GST which, as a value-added tax, has all the taxes paid between the initial creation of the good or service and the final consumer refunded. Consequently, there will be rises that will occur in everything we do.

Prime Minister Gillard says there will be no carbon tax on fuel for the family car. Really? How does she think that the petrol is got from the tank at the service station into the tank of the car? Electricity pumps it. How do you think you pay for it? You go to the cash register, which is driven by electricity. In this building, the lights, the air conditioning—everything about it is driven by electricity. The sewage system, the water system—all driven by electricity. And that is the impost that the carbon tax has put on every aspect of our lives.

Our dependence on refrigeration is well known. You go to the supermarket. You pick up fruit that appears to be fresh and yet you know it has been kept somewhere else in a warehouse under refrigerated circumstances. You take your meat, and you take it for granted; somehow it got from the abattoirs to your supermarket and has been kept cool and fresh and safe—electricity again. And also there are the gases that are used to make that refrigeration work; the escalation in the tax for them has gone through the roof—some people say 290 per cent. So this is an insidious tax that is attacking the very structure of our lives. That includes an impost on the fans in schoolrooms for children and on the buses that take the children to school. Nothing escapes. And yet we have a Prime Minister who stands there as she did today and says, 'No, no; everybody is protected or compensated.' Let us understand. What does compensation do? Compensation is a payment for an injury that the person paying it has caused. This Prime Minister said, six days before the election, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' Let us remind ourselves why she said it: because Tony Abbott had been saying throughout the entire election period that, as sure as night follows day, there would be a carbon tax should the Gillard government be re-elected. So she looked straight down the barrel of the camera to refute it. Had she not said that, she would not have been in the position to negotiate to become the Prime Minister, because win she did not. And the Treasurer said it was a hysterical allegation by the opposition. Well, it was not hysterical; it was accurate. The long and the short of it is that we have said we will repeal that tax.

Let us again look at this question of compensation. Treasury calculated that the damage done is $9.90 a week and therefore they will offer compensation of $10.10 a week, saying that people will be 20c a week better off—wow! Anybody who truly believes that Treasury can predict with that degree of accuracy must believe there are fairies at the bottom of the garden.

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There's no precision in the budget estimates.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am about to pick up on that point made by my friend the shadow minister for small business, who understands very well the impact on small business.

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Devastating.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Absolutely. The fact of the matter is: Treasury gets it wrong every year. Every year, the budget is wrong. Six months later, we get supplementary estimates to fix it up. In the case of the budget of this government, it was going to have a $22 billion deficit and it turns out to be $43 billion. So anybody who thinks that they can get it down to a 20c margin, as I said, must believe there are fairies at the bottom of the garden.

This is a punitive, harsh and unfair tax. Because it attacks the disposable income of those on fixed incomes—pensioners, part-pensioners and self-funded retirees—it also has an enormous impact on the retail sector. Research that I had Access Economics do predicted that the silver market would go platinum because of the purchasing power of Australian seniors. When their spending power is diminished or fear is put into their hearts—and the fear comes from the rhetoric of the government, not the warning from the opposition; the government has said that you have got to be fearful because the world is going to come to an end because of climate change unless we have this tax. And yet this tax will not bring the emissions down one bit. In fact, they will be continuing to rise to 2020. So the whole nature of it is fallacious.

We hear the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency shriek and carry on. He is the one who said the seas were going to rise up and houses would fall into the sea. Where did he buy his house? Right on the seaside! The fear campaign and the fearmongering that has gone on in the name of the government, saying, 'Be fearful of climate change; this tax is the answer to it,' is nothing short of a good old furphy. The fact of the matter is it is a punitive tax which is meant to damage people—hence they use the term 'compensation'—and it damages seniors more than ever.

I notice the member for Braddon over there having a yawn. Of course, he would be very bored by the plight of seniors. He would be very bored at their plight and would not give a damn what happened to them. That is way the Labor Party is. You would remember during the 2010 election campaign the Prime Minister said in cabinet—and it was effectively leaked—'Why would we give anything to pensioners? They don't vote for us anyway.' That is the attitude that the government has towards senior Australians—to disparage them and to pretend to have their interests at heart with this ridiculous compensation package. The fact of the matter is that the damage to them will be far, far greater than any compensation that will be paid.

Then we have the flip-flopping that has gone on in the policy. It is $23 a tonne to start with. Then it will go to $29 a tonne and then to $37 a tonne. The government then came in and said: 'We'll get rid of the floor price. We'll tie it all to Europe. But we're not going to change our Treasury modelling. It's still going to come out at $29 a tonne.' That is despite the fact that in Europe it is around $6 a tonne. It is a con. The Australian people are being conned and they are being punished by having their precious electricity, which determines the standard of living that they enjoy, being taken away from them. They are being punished by a government that told an untruth before the election in order to attempt to win government. But win they did not.

The Prime Minister is there only because she stitched up two deals—one a deal she stitched up with the execution of Kevin Rudd and one a deal she stitched up with the Independents. The Independents are equally complicit in this perpetration of punishment of the people. We in the opposition need to be strong—which we are—and every day bring evidence. The Prime Minister denies that evidence daily. We have noticed that nothing is the Prime Minister's fault. It does not matter what happens, it was not her; it was Tony Abbott, it was the state government or it was somebody else! Even with the unemployment figures today that showed there had been a growth in unemployment, she boldly stood there and said, 'We've created more jobs.' But a rise in unemployment means more jobs disappeared than were created. But of course that is not her fault. She is only standing there. It has got to be somebody else's fault. The day will come when you can no longer call the gender card or the victim card. By pretending to be a victim, the Prime Minister has demeaned every woman in this parliament. We did not come here for it to be said that we cannot do the job and have to be treated differently; we on this side of the parliament came here to say that we are the best people for the job of representing the people and that the ideas that we have are the best ideas to take us into government. We do not wish to be treated as if we are somehow less able and victims of somebody's spiteful words. It is a pathetic thing to say. Could you imagine Angela Merkel making a speech like that or Maggie Thatcher making a speech like that? Of course not. The fact of the matter is: if you take leadership, you must exercise leadership. If you cannot stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. At the end of the day, what we are seeing here is a government which has no purposefulness in order to look after the interests of the people. It wants to punish the people. (Time expired)

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence Science and Personnel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the contribution of the honourable member opposite, the member for Mackellar, not for its comments or arguments about the carbon tax, because there were not any. As to a price on carbon and electricity, she referred to electricity prices, and she referred to the rebuttal by the Prime Minister, the minister responsible and the Treasurer of the statements being made on a continuing basis in this parliament by the opposition.

We saw a prime example of that yesterday, when we saw another illustration of the porkies which seem to float from the other side of the chamber on a regular basis, attempting to mislead the Australian population into believing that somehow or other the price on carbon is responsible for the extraordinary increases in electricity prices across the country, when the opposition know and the community knows, generally speaking, that that is not the case. The facts speak for themselves. When we saw yesterday the opposition table a bill and assert some horrendous increase in electricity price as a result of the price on carbon, we learnt, of course, that the increase on the electricity bill which was presented was almost solely attributable—except for nine per cent, which I think was the figure attributable to the price on carbon—to increased electricity consumption in that household. To come into the parliament and assert that the doubling of the electricity cost to a particular family was the direct result of the price on carbon was disingenuous. It was dishonest. It was untrue. It was a porky.

It is up to the opposition to make the case as to why they believe we should not have a price on carbon, but it is not up to the opposition to strike fear in the hearts of Australians that somehow or other their lives are going to change irreversibly, beyond their control, because of the fact that we have a price on carbon. We were told that it was going to be Armageddon when the price on carbon was introduced. We were told that Whyalla would disappear off the face of the earth. Let me just say that I sit next to Minister Gray, the member for Brand. His mother lives in Whyalla. He tells me, most assuredly, that Whyalla still exists.

I am surprised, therefore, that we have not had an apology from the Leader of the Opposition, because all of these grandiose claims about Armageddon, about how the earth would be flattened by the decisions taken by this government in relation to a price on carbon, have proven to be untrue. Yet we do not see the opposition walking back from the accusations they are making to the community about the impact of the price on carbon on their daily lives.

We ought to know about the electricity prices. We know what has happened to electricity prices in this country, and very little of it has got to do with the price on carbon. We know that, in the last three years, per household, power prices have gone up in New South Wales by 55 per cent; in Victoria by 33 per cent; in Queensland by 39 per cent and in South Australia by 43 per cent. In Western Australia, they have gone up by a whopping $552 per household. It is not the carbon price—it is decisions by state governments.

Yet we did not hear a whimper, not a yelp, from the opposition protesting against the increase in electricity prices in those states when they increased them so markedly, with a dramatic impact on the household budgets of families in those states. It is a shame on the opposition. They need to explain to the Australian community the detail of why prices increase, not come in with some story, which proves to be untrue each time they tell it, that somehow or other it is the carbon price which is responsible for a dramatic increase in electricity prices. It is manifestly untrue. It is an untruth.

We do not see the opposition going out and trying to tell the truth; it is quite the opposite. They are attempting to convince the Australian community that every increase in price that they see on their electricity bill is a result of carbon pricing. They know it is false. We know it is false. But they will not admit it to the Australian community. We have just seen, unfortunately, another example from the member opposite, a person whom I respect—but nevertheless it is up to her to make sure that she tells the truth. Just simply tell the truth. If we all tell the truth in this place about the impact of carbon pricing, there will be no fear in the community about the impact of carbon pricing. There will be no fear because the facts are abundantly clear to all those who take just a moment to have a look at what is happening.

In the context of the carbon price, the government acknowledged that there would be an impact on family budgets. We acknowledged what that impact would be. So we put in place a set of measures to address the additional costs to all Australians across the community, particularly those in need such as aged Australians and veterans. I will give you some of the detail.

As a result of assistance to seniors, 3.4 million pensioners in Australia will receive assistance that more than covers their average expected cost of putting a price on carbon: a real and permanent increase to the pension of around $338 per year for singles and around $510 a year for couples combined. Self-funded retirees with a Commonwealth seniors health card will receive the same support as aged pensioners through extra payments paid with the seniors supplement. Seniors and others with medical conditions who rely on medical treatment that uses more power can get extra help with their bills through the 'essential medical equipment payment' of $140 per year, with over 10,000 payments already made.

Our support is targeted at low- and middle-income families and pensioners who have the least room to move in their family budgets. On average, the expected increase in costs due to a carbon price for a single pensioner will be just $204 per year. With the increase in their pension payments of $338 they will be $134 better off.

Why don't the opposition just simply tell the truth and tell the community that in fact their family budgets will be able to sustain any increases that might come about as a result of the carbon pricing because of these supplements which are being made? On average, the expected increase in costs due to a carbon price for a pensioner couple will be $284 per year. With the increase in their pension payments of $510 per year, they will be $226 better off.

So why are we hearing consistently, day after day after day, representations from the opposition which tell us that that is not the case? It is manifestly untrue. We know that, under the Liberals' plan, they will claw back $300 a year from single pensioners and more than $500 a year from pensioner couples. And the New South Wales and Queensland Liberal governments have finally come clean on their plans to claw back money from public housing tenants to fill their own coffers.

We have already delivered the most historic pension reforms in the 100-year history of the pension system. These reforms have delivered increases of $172 a fortnight for singles and $182 for couples combined, on the maximum rate since 2009. New indexation arrangements mean that pensions are keeping better pace with pensioners' cost of living. That is in addition to those matters which I have referred to earlier.

Let me now go to veterans, because that is an area which I know that the member opposite, the member for Boothby, is interested in. There are 156,000 service pensioners and senior supplement recipients who receive a lump sum of $250 for singles or $190 for each eligible member of a couple. On 14 June this year, 110,000 disability pensioners received a lump sum of up to $380 a week and 92,000 war widows and widowers received a lump sum of $250. The children of veterans who receive fortnightly education allowances are also eligible for clean energy payments.

An ongoing payment, the clean energy supplement, will commence between March 2013 and January 2014, depending on the type of payment received. An essential medical equipment payment of $140 per annum is also available for eligible pensioners, pensioner concession cardholders, health card holders, Commonwealth seniors health card and DVA gold or white card holders to cover the additional costs of running essential medical equipment and medically required heating and/or cooling that arise from the introduction of a carbon price. Additional assistance is available through the family tax benefit, the new low-income supplement and the tax system. The government are more than compensating people for the impacts on their cost of living as a result of carbon pricing. That is clear. Yet, as I said earlier, day after day after day we get the same old drivel coming from the Leader of the Opposition, his frontbenchers and his backbenchers about the impact of the price on carbon. They are going into their communities and telling people untruths, trying to persuade people that somehow or another the world will end as a result of carbon pricing, when they know that it is simply untrue.

I say to members of the opposition: why is it that you cannot fundamentally agree with the facts? Why is it that you cannot agree with the facts—for example, we know that in the case of electricity prices in New South Wales the Treasury estimate for the change in price is 10 per cent. The average increase in regulated prices due to the carbon price is 8.9 per cent. In Queensland, it is 11 per cent—that is, $3.34 a week. In the case of South Australia, it is 4.6 per cent, or $1.47 per week. In Western Australia, it is 9.13 per cent, or $2.50 a week. In Tasmania, it is 5.6 per cent, which is less than $3 a week. Those are the facts, and people are being compensated with a $10 payment.

How is it that we are left in this position where the opposition masquerade and come in here with these trumped-up claims about the impact of carbon pricing on electricity bills when, as we saw yesterday with this very bill, that they were totally false and totally discredited? I note the observations made by the minister during question time. We did not see the Leader of the Opposition, or the person who raised the question yesterday, come in here and say: 'My apologies. I've misled the parliament and I've misled all those people who may be listening to this broadcast. The fact is that the carbon price did not have the impact that I claimed it would have.' Why didn't they do that? Why can't they just admit the truth? Why can't they deal with the facts instead of making up stories which are so absurdly untrue that their untruth is obvious to the world?

The claims which were made about the end of the world—the Armageddon which would come upon us—after 1 July have been shown to be plainly false. It is obvious to the whole of the Australian community that Whyalla still exists, that the coal industry still exists and that the economy is growing. But this is not what was said. I invite all those people in the community who are worried about the carbon price to go to the words of the Leader of the Opposition and check them against the facts. The facts will tell you that the Leader of the Opposition and all of those behind him are telling giant porkies. (Time expired)

Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Primary Healthcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We need to think back to 2007 and remember why Labor was elected then. They were elected in part because they understood how important the issue of the cost of living was to families and to seniors. Everyone would have seen on the TV news the photo opportunities of Kevin Rudd sitting around a table with families to discuss the household bills. There was lots of nodding and lots of empathy. He did it in so many seats. Labor were going to do things: Fuelwatch, which was a failure, and GroceryWatch, which was a failure. Now we have come to a situation where the Labor Party are in complete denial over one of the main concerns—that is, the cost of living—of families and people on fixed incomes, especially seniors. I am talking not just about electricity. We have seen dramatic rises in all utility rates—of water, of electricity and of gas. They keep on going up.

A lot of the government's arguments say, 'It's not all due to the carbon tax,' but there is no doubt that the carbon tax makes the pressure on the cost of living much, much worse. The latest argument from the government is, 'The price rise for electricity is in the order of 10 per cent; the policy is working as planned.' But what that ignores is the enormous pressure that Australian families and Australian seniors are feeling. They are struggling with all the cost-of-living increases under this government. What the government do not get is that, by adding a carbon tax, they have just made the situation much, much worse.

We often hear this phrase, but it is worth hearing it again. Not more than six days before the last election, the Prime Minister of this country clearly misled the Australian people when she stated, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' Not one Labor candidate distributed any material about or said that they would be voting for a carbon tax, yet every single one of them did so. We know from Australian political history that any party which goes to an election promising one thing and then doing another will pay a very high price when they next have to face the Australian people. I think about 1993, when Paul Keating said that he was campaigning against a GST and then, in his first budget after the election, he dramatically increased the sales tax on a whole raft of goods. It was, in effect, a GST by stealth. Following that, the Labor members who voted for the increase in sales taxes in 1993 faced the black-and-red ads on TV about how they voted to increase the sales tax on wine, on cars—on everything.

The attitude of the Labor Party seems to be denial: 'What are you complaining about? It's working as we expected.' I think about 1993; I also think about how, in 2001, when the Liberal party were in government, there was a big campaign by the motoring organisations over concerns about the high cost of petrol with the introduction of the GST. We listened to what the community was saying and made some changes because we recognised the pain in the community about the high price of petrol. But we had not taken a policy of making such changes—that is, removing excise and adding the GST—to the electorate, so the situation then was not equivalent to the situation we find now, where a government which was elected promising to do something about the cost of living for families and seniors has done the very opposite.

In my own electorate of Boothby, 18.7 per cent of people are over 65. As I go around the electorate I have a lot to do with people on the age pension, with people who are part pensioners and part self-funded retirees and with people who are self-funded retirees. One of the unfortunate things about the carbon tax is that people on fixed incomes will be hit the hardest. As the cost of living rises under the carbon tax, those people who are on fixed incomes—pensioners and self-funded retirees—will have less money to spend on leisure, less to spend on recreation, less to spend on their grandchildren and less to spend on the essentials of life. There are something like half a million self-funded retirees in Australia. There are 1.2 million age pensioners and there are 880,000 part age pensioners in Australia. They are really the forgotten people in this debate. The Labor Party gave no thought to the impact on seniors of introducing their carbon tax. I regularly see self-funded retirees and pensioners at shopping centres and at my listening posts and, through my surveys, I hear from those who tell me what this tax means to them as they struggle to make ends meet because they see their grocery bills and electricity bills going up and up. Senior Australians have worked hard all their lives. They should not be expected to absorb the cost of the carbon tax on their own when they have already given so much back to our community.

Another one of the lies is that a carbon tax will not work unless it hurts, that that is the way to change behaviour, which the government are so keen to do. So, again, their argument about compensation ignores the fact that you do not need to compensate people if you do not have a carbon tax. That is the simple thing: the compensation is only necessary because of the carbon tax in the first place.

I also want to go to issues in my electorate of Boothby in South Australia. The Belair Hotel, when they received their first power bill under the carbon tax, saw that their off-peak power rate had increased by 45 per cent due to a carbon adjustment charged by AGL. When the Lakes Resort Hotel in the electorate of Hindmarsh got their first post carbon tax electricity bill it cost them an extra $3½ thousand a month—

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How much?

Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Primary Healthcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

$3½ thousand a month, due to the carbon adjustment alone. If you are running a hotel there is not much you can do to reduce your electricity. The City of Onkaparinga is a local government area in the electorates of Kingston, Boothby and Mayo. The Mayor of the City of Onkaparinga, Lorraine Rosenberg, has been quoted as stating that the carbon tax will cost ratepayers an extra $800,000 a year. Street lighting makes up 70 per cent of the council's electricity bill. They cannot reduce their usage—they have to keep the lights on at night. They have no choice but to pay more.

Paul Kerin, CEO of South Australia's Independent Essential Services Commission, when asked if repealing the tax would cut electricity prices, responded, 'Yes, and we'd look to make adjustment at that time.' So there you have it, from the CEO of South Australia's Independent Essential Services Commission. If you want to see electricity prices come down, support the coalition and their plan to reduce the carbon tax.

The one thing you have to say about the Labor Party is that they do have extraordinary discipline. We saw it at the start of this week, where they blindly voted to support a situation that was obvious to everyone was unsustainable, and they are now blindly following this same approach, ignoring their voters, ignoring their constituents. (Time expired)

Geoff Lyons (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I guess I should lay out on the table why we are in this position. One of the major reasons is that the Liberal Party gave their preferences to a member of the Greens, so that is the parliament we are stuck with. It was Liberal preferences that elected the Greens member of parliament, and that is why we are in this situation.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Can members on my left please keep it down.

Geoff Lyons (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian people decide who is in the Australian parliament and the Australian government then have to negotiate. So the Leader of the Opposition lies back in his chair with his feet on the table and his hands behind his head and says, 'You are going to vote for me, aren't you, you Independents, you Greens, because I am the opposition leader now?' That was the difference. The Prime Minister went in and negotiated.

One of the Independents told us that the Leader of the Opposition said, 'I'll give you whatever you like except I won't sell a certain part of my anatomy.' That is the difference. The Prime Minister of Australia went in and genuinely negotiated. Part of this situation was caused by the Liberal preferences going to the Greens—and that is the parliament we have got. The government has been upfront about the carbon price and electricity prices, as they affect all Australians.

Treasury modelling has found that the carbon price would increase household electricity prices by 10 per cent, $3.30 a week on average. The Electricity Regulator determinations have confirmed this. In some cases, the carbon impact has been less than the Treasury's estimates. To meet the impact, the government has provided $10.10 a week on average to households. The opposition should focus on the state Liberal governments, who are lining their pockets with this compensation from those in public housing. It is important to establish these facts because those opposite are engaged in a cowardly campaign of frightening pensioners.

Recently the opposition leader made several misleading claims about an electricity bill from West Australia. The opposition leader told the House there was an $800 increase in just one bill, 70 per cent of which was due to the carbon tax. But, surprise, surprise, when this bill was examined it was clear that the proportion of the increase which was due to the carbon price was a fraction of the claimed 70 per cent. This is lazy, this is deceitful and this treats pensioners disrespectfully, as nothing but fodder for a political scare campaign. If the opposition really cared about pensioners, they would have established the facts about this bill, rather than rushing in here to distort it for political ends.

Those opposite have misled people generally and senior Australians in particular about job losses. Those opposite have misled people about assistance for small business. They have misled people about the strength of our economy. It has been a farce of wrecking balls, cobra strikes, python squeezes, dogs of taxes and octopus embraces. It is time the opposition displayed some integrity and put this discredited scare campaign out of its misery.

The member for Moore is a man of great integrity and a person who in my short time here I have grown to admire for both his words and actions. I think the opposition should take his advice and come up with properly funded policies which look to the future. The opposition leader should get off his downward spiral of negativity by taking advice from the member for Moore.

The carbon price has been in operation for over 100 days. Before it started, the opposition leader made countless dire predictions about its impact. Plague and pestilence were to be brought upon us. Not a single one of those predictions has come to pass. The opposition leader had predicted: Whyalla, Gladstone and the Hunter Valley would all be wiped off the map, but investment is growing—the Mayor of Whyalla says his town is 'kicking goals'; the death of the coal industry, but Australia's exports of thermal coal are forecast to increase by 12 per cent to 165 million tonnes in 2012—in fact, another coal loader has been ordered for Newcastle; the death of the steel industry, yet OneSteel, or Arrium, is now the subject of a takeover bid; and the death of manufacturing, but manufacturing employment has grown by 9,000 jobs since the carbon price began. We know that some areas are doing it tough, and Bass in Tasmania is one of those areas, but that is nothing to do with the carbon price. I believe it is partly because the community, including businesses, have been relying on the pulp mill being built.

The opposition leader predicted the price on carbon would create unimaginable price increases, yet the RBA can find no significant price rises. He also predicted tens of thousands of job losses, but the unemployment rate has dropped from 5.3 per cent to 5.1 per cent. The opposition leader has repeatedly claimed no other country is taking action. But Australia's carbon price will soon be linked to a scheme covering more than 30 other countries, and recently the government of the US state of California—the eighth largest economy in the world—announced that it will be exploring the potential linking of our carbon markets.

Contrary to the opposition leader's fallacious claims, the government's Household Assistance Package, funded by the carbon price, has made millions of people better off. The government has delivered tax cuts, higher family payments, increases in pensions and benefits to millions of households to help with the modest cost-of-living impacts. One million people no longer have to file a tax return because we trebled the tax-free threshold. That is a reform those opposite would never have made. It is only tax cuts for the wealthy that they understand. We know the opposition, when in government, were the highest taxing government as a proportion of GDP in Australia's history.

The opposition leader has trafficked in fiction and, if I can borrow a word from the minister, in a mendacious scare campaign. He continues to do it despite the facts and despite reality. The opposition have misled the people about the strength of our economy. It has been a farce of wrecking balls, cobra strikes, python squeezes, dogs of taxes and octopus embraces.

The carbon price is an essential economic reform. It is vital for our long-term competitiveness. It will allow Australia to play its part in tackling global climate change and at the same time improve our productivity through better use of energy inputs. Numerous economic reports have found that, while taking action has an economic cost, the cost of inaction will be far greater. The cheapest and most efficient way of reducing carbon pollution is to harness the power of the market, to put a price tag on greenhouse gas pollution that creates an incentive to cut that pollution. Every major economy is tackling climate change. Countries are using a mixture of regulation, carbon pricing, renewable energy targets and investment. Ensuring Australia does its fair share in tackling the global problem of climate change, we are doing this at least cost and are in a position to compete and prosper in a low-carbon economy, enhancing the productivity of Australian industry so that we are well placed to take up the growth opportunities that will be available in Asia and beyond over the next decades, which will support all Australians, including senior Australians, into the future.

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The carbon tax will have an impact on all Australians. For some individuals, the impact will be very significant, and that will be the case for many of our senior Australians. That is something that is of great concern to me as the member for McPherson, and I know that it is of great concern to many of the seniors that live in my electorate of McPherson on the Gold Coast and also more broadly on the southern Gold Coast. I know that because they come and speak to me about it. They take every opportunity to raise with me their concerns about how they are going to pay their bills into the future and whether they will have enough money to get themselves through their retirement. One of the questions that are at the forefront of their minds is: what will the impact of the carbon tax be on my future?

I think it is important to look at some of the numbers for the seniors that we have here. I should start by saying that the definition of a senior Australian is anyone over the age of 50 years.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's a bit harsh!

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is very harsh! In my electorate of McPherson, 34.5 per cent of the population are 50 years and over, so they are classified and categorised as seniors.

I recently hosted a seniors forum on the Gold Coast with my friend and colleague the member for Moncrieff. We were fortunate enough to have as our guest speaker of the day the shadow minister for seniors, the member for Mackellar. Debate interrupted.