Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the dying days of the 2010 federal election campaign a desperate Labor Party promised there would be no carbon tax under a Labor government. Then, after sneaking into office on the back of its unholy alliance with the Greens, Labor's lie was exposed. Labor introduced a carbon tax.

Fast forward to the brink of last year's election and the now opposition leader, Bill Shorten, stepped from the shadows, took down his Prime Minister and reinstalled Kevin Rudd who, in another shameless survival bid declared:

Termination: that sounds pretty final to me. But Labor is nothing if not adept at stabbing its own and mincing its words. It has turned both into an art form.

Of course, the Labor Party never did get rid of the carbon tax. The pledge was not even remotely authentic and was designed as a political fix to fool the Australian people who, after granting this coalition government a mandate to eliminate the tax, have witnessed the Labor Party now rejecting the tax's repeal in the Senate. This pattern of dishonesty—this long-running con—is one thing: Australians have been left with a tax that they hate and that they never voted for.

But leaving aside the moral misgivings of repeatedly saying one thing and doing the opposite, it is the day-to-day impacts of Labor's standing by and for the carbon tax that has cut the deepest. During the six years of Labor administration, the cost of living soared: gas prices jumped by 63 per cent and electricity prices climbed by 93 per cent. Water and sewerage bills were up by 63 per cent, education costs rose by 39 per cent and medical and hospital costs increased by 46 per cent.

In fact, the full extent of the damage has only recently been revealed, with the release of figures detailing the carbon tax's bill for all liable entities for the 2012-13 financial year. In its first year of operation the carbon tax was a $7.6 billion hit on the Australian economy, and a direct hit on about 75,000 businesses. That is far worse than the Labor Party ever let on. Manufacturing has been slugged $1.1 billion, and that is putting pressure on local jobs. The power sector has been hit with $4.1 billion in additional costs. That equates to higher electricity bills for locals in my electorate and across the nation. Indeed, rising electricity costs and ballooning costs of living as a result of the carbon tax are an extraordinary attack on families.

All of this is from the Australian Labor Party, the political movement that is supposed to be helping working Australians. Instead, it has directly and continually loaded up the cost of living and eroded employment opportunities and job creation initiatives. It has had countless opportunities to desist; to eradicate the carbon tax and relieve the pain. But no: the Labor Party, still fearful of stepping out from under the spell of the Greens, is committed to higher electricity and gas bills, and hurting Australian families and businesses.

Unemployment is one of the key negative social dividends of Labor's economic failures. Job opportunity, job security and the rising cost of living are all connected. Somebody who is on Newstart because they cannot find a job is the same issue as a local small business which cannot give that person a job because of crippling overheads. Under Labor, business flagged. So many people found themselves in difficult times because of the exceptionally high cost of living. It was the consequence of bad policies and massive overregulation, underscored by the carbon tax.

But this government, a government which keeps its promises, is cutting the waste. We have introduced a suite of deregulation legislation ahead of the largest single reduction of federal laws in the nation's history. Wednesday's red tape repeal day will see the end to more than 9,000 bizarre, useless and punitive laws, regulations and guidelines that have cluttered our lives, added cost and stymied confidence. The coalition promised a deregulation agenda that would slash $1 billion in red and green tape every year. We are delivering, with hundreds of millions of dollars in compliance costs to be removed in the first of many dedicated repeal days.

The aim is to get government out of the way—to streamline our lives so that businesses can free their arms and breathe and grow again. That means a stronger economy and more jobs. The previous government's red-tape legacy is well documented: 40 new or increased taxes and more than 21,000 new regulations. We are untangling the mess that has swallowed our businesses, schools and hospitals, a mess that has stifled productivity and outcomes and led to costs being passed onto everyday Australians.

Now, the most corrosive detriment, the carbon tax, must go too. It must go if we are to bring immediate relief to households by cutting off the tax's reach into almost every aspect of daily life, including groceries and transport. After all, in killing off the carbon tax, this government is at the same time keeping the compensation regime of tax cuts and pension and benefit increases—so that is tax cuts and pension increases without a carbon tax. The removal of the carbon tax in 2014-15 will reduce average costs of living across all households by about $550. With the carbon tax gone, based on Treasury modelling, retail electricity prices should be around nine per cent lower and retail gas prices around seven per cent lower than they would otherwise be. That translates to household average electricity bills being reduced by around $200, with household average gas bills down about $70. Treasury's modelling indicates that the abolition of the carbon tax in the next financial year will cut about 0.7 percentage points from the consumer price index. For business, repealing the carbon tax will reduce the bills for inputs, which have been driven up by the escalating cost of energy, primarily gas and electricity. Business compliance costs are also expected to fall, by about $87.6 million a year as a result of the repealing of the carbon tax.

The carbon tax is not cleaning up the environment, but it sure is cleaning out the finances of Australian businesses and families. In my electorate of Longman, local businesses have told me how they have been slugged tens of thousands of dollars in carbon tax, money that should be in the hands of potential employees they can no longer afford to hire. Labor refuses to accept the outcome of an election where it experienced the lowest primary vote in 100 years. It cares not for what Australians want but for its own petty politicking and cynical devices to avoid irrelevance. They might be cute with politics, but the members opposite are acute underperformers when it comes to delivering lower costs for all Australians.

It is time, well past time, for Labor to step up and help Australian families and businesses by scrapping the carbon tax. The people have resoundingly voted for it to go, as have the government members in this place. All coalition MPs lived up to their promise to scrap the job-destroying carbon tax, and yet every Labor MP voted to keep it. So Australians have been left in no doubt about who wants to bring down their household power bills and who does not. It may have a different leader, but it is the same old Labor Party—one that cannot be trusted to keep its word; one that stands opposed to strengthening the economy, boosting jobs and manufacturing, and lowering daily costs for all Australians.

I am happy to declare that the will of this government, informed by the will of the Australian people, will not be thwarted. In contrast to Labor's cheap political manoeuvres, shifting loyalties and downright lies, the coalition is a government whose aim is straight and true. We will do exactly what we said we would do. We will not stop until Labor's carbon tax is gone.