Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the Environment. I refer to the information released by the Clean Energy Regulator last week that shows that the cost of the carbon tax is a $1.1 billion impost on Australian manufacturers. Can the minister inform the House how many businesses are paying the carbon tax?

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to acknowledge the member for Hume and a very distinguished business career in which, throughout that time, he learnt a lot about how to manage businesses. He has always been concerned about bad bills of all kinds, whether they have been bad electricity bills, bad carbon tax bills, bad fuel bills or just plain bad bills. He asks how many businesses are being affected by these bad bills. The answer is not, as they would have us believe on the other side, that 500 firms have been hit by the carbon tax. It is not that 5,000 have been hit by the carbon tax. It is not even that 50,000 have been hit by the carbon tax. According to the Australian Treasury, 75,000 firms have been directly hit by carbon tax bills. More than that, every firm in Australia that consumes electricity or gas is hit by the carbon tax, and every family in Australia that consumes electricity or gas is hit by the carbon tax.

The question specifically went to manufacturing. As the Clean Energy Regulator set out recently, it is not just a multibillion dollar hit on Australian firms; specifically on manufacturing, it is a $1.1 billion hit. That $1.1 billion includes $596 million in the metals sector for firms such as Rio Tinto and Nyrstar. In the chemical manufacturing sector, there is a $311 million hit for firms such as Incitec Pivot, which provides fertilisers to farmers. In the glass and cement manufacturing sector it is a $30 million hit—CSR, Adelaide Brighton. At a time of massive global pressure, we are putting massive Australian pressure on our manufacturing firms. In the pulp and paper sector, there is another $25 million, and, in food product manufacturing, another $25 million. It is a $1.1 billion manufacturing hit.

The question then is: with these bills being foisted upon Australian firms, what can we do about it? Come next Monday, when the Senate sits again, it will have been three months that the carbon tax bills have been before the Senate. The Senate, according to this Leader of the Opposition, is on an industrial go-slow. The opposition leader, who has a history of enforcing industrial go-slows, has his senators on a go-slow. Three months and they are not even close to repealing the carbon tax. They are not even close to voting on repeal of the bills. The message is: if you want to do something for Australian manufacturing firms, get out of the way and repeal the bills.