Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the Environment. I refer to figures released by the Clean Energy Regulator that show that the carbon tax has hit BHP Billiton Worsley Alumina with at least $56 million in higher costs in the last financial year. Are there any plans to further extend the reach of the carbon tax that will further impact on Western Australian businesses and families?

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

I particularly want to thank the member for Forrest, because Western Australian firms have been hit by the carbon tax and are being hit by the carbon tax. In particular, let us begin with this: a $627 million hit last year alone on Western Australian firms, with $344 million of that on electricity, $182 million of that on mining and manufacturing and $94 million of that as a hit to gas. The example was given of BHP Billiton Worsley Alumina. That is a $56 million hit on that operation. Other examples are: Yara Pilbara Fertilisers, $35 million; Pilbara Iron, $16 million; CSBP Fertilisers, $14 million; and Murrin Murrin nickel, $11 million. Those examples continue right throughout operations across Western Australia.

But of course the question asked was whether or not the tax was likely to be extended. As honourable members would know, 75,000 firms in Australia are already hit not just by the carbon tax but also by the off-road diesel fuel component of the carbon tax. That could be in warehousing, cool stores and all manner of businesses—small and large. But let us remember this, because the Leader of the Opposition has been wonderfully silent since the election: their policy was and continues to be to increase and to extend the reach of the carbon tax. Their policy was and continues to be to add the carbon tax to on-road diesel from 1 July this year.

Today is your chance, I say to the Leader of the Opposition. Will you now rule out, in any form—whether it is in this House or outside of this House, whether it is in a press conference or actually when you go to the people of WA—that the Labor Party's policy continues to be to extend the carbon tax to on-road diesel? It is a very simple test. You can run but you cannot hide. The policy is to extend the carbon tax to on-road diesel. Between now and the Western Australian Senate vote, here is the chance for the Western Australian people to know: does the Labor Party want to extend the carbon tax? Is it still its policy to extend the carbon tax to on-road diesel? Somewhere, sometime, that question has to be answered, because at this moment it is the policy, and if it is not the policy and if you are walking away from the carbon tax, everybody deserves to know. So, right now, we have a $627 million hit. We have 75,000 firms around Australia being hit by the off-road diesel. But it is the Leader of the Opposition's plan to extend that diesel tax— (Time expired)