Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the Environment. I refer the minister to the list of entities liable for the carbon tax, published by the Clean Energy Regulator on 14 February, that shows that Simplot paid a $1.1 million carbon tax bill in 2012-13. Will the minister outline the negative impact that the carbon tax has had on Australian businesses and why the tax must be repealed immediately?

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

Only yesterday the Leader of the Opposition told us that he was for action not words. During the election campaign we heard that their action was going to be to terminate the carbon tax immediately. They were going to terminate it. They were not just going to talk about it; they were for action. If the Leader of the Opposition wants to be the action man he claims to be, today is the day. It is up before the Senate. You can have your troops, your senators, go into the Senate to support repeal of the carbon tax. But something tells me that it is not action man, it is not the terminator, it is all talk at the moment.

When the member for Lyons, who is something of an action man—I think he had a 13½ per cent swing at the election; the largest two-party preferred swing in the country—asks about taking real action to protect firms in Tasmania, you can back his words. What do we know about Simplot? Simplot has a $1.1 million carbon tax bill. What did their managing director, Terry O'Brien, say not that long ago in talking about the carbon tax? The managing director of Simplot, talking about the carbon tax, said:

Governments should not have to prop up private businesses, but they do have the capacity to make a mess of private business, and over the last few years we have seen legislation and regulation that has impacted us.

But it is not just Simplot; across Tasmania we see Tasmanian Electro Metallurgical, Grange Resources and Bell Bay aluminium smelter and, when you go nationally, a $1.1 billion manufacturing hit. But it is not just $1.1 billion of manufacturing; on top of that, there is also electricity, off-road diesel, gas and refrigeration in the case of food manufacturing firms.

These are the very costs which could be reduced if the Leader of the Opposition took the action to walk his senators into the Senate and repeal the carbon tax. There is a strike at the moment. He is the strike leader; he could be the strike breaker. Business more generally has a point here. The Business Council says:

To reduce these costs, Labor should step aside and let the government repeal the carbon tax legislation.

ACCI have said:

Abolishing the carbon tax and mining tax and coming up with a pathway back to surplus will go a long way to restoring business confidence.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He's a poor man's Christopher Pyne!

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Moreton will remove himself under 94(a).

The member for Moreton then left the chamber.

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

AMEC have said that 'the repeal of the carbon tax and mining tax will go a long way to recovering some of the lost competitiveness'. It goes on and on with business saying that they want the action of repealing the carbon tax. It is time to take your senators in and repeal the carbon tax.