Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Agriculture. Will the minister inform the House how repealing the carbon tax and putting spending in agriculture on a sustainable footing will help fix Labor's legacy of waste and mismanagement?

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. The honourable member's seat of Mallee is home to the Mallee-Wimmera pipeline. I just noted this morning it did an inquiry and the Mallee-Wimmera pipeline is paying about $100,000 a year in carbon tax, so not only are we delivering water to all the people growing tomatoes, grapes and cereals but we are also delivering a Green-Labor Party tax. I do not know quite what the purpose of that is. But the member for Mallee would know that the person who ultimately pays the tax is the lady pushing the shopping trolley in the supermarket.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Or the man.

Opposition members interjecting—

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

The Minister for Agriculture will resume his seat. It is impossible to hear the answer that is being given. There will be silence so that we can hear. The question has been asked and we are listening to the answer.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know that Labor and the Greens would be upset about hearing the answer, but we also note that to this day they stand behind a new tax on fuel on 1 July this year, a new tax of 6.85c a litre—

Ms Rowland interjecting—

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

The member for Greenway will desist.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

on all transport costs. It is amazing how they get themselves completely in a flux about an excise of less than a cent but they still stand behind a tax of 6.85c a litre on all transport so that anybody transporting tomatoes out of the Mallee, transporting grapes, transporting milk, transporting beef has to pay a transport tax. Who pays the transport tax? It is the gentleman pushing the shopping trolley.

The perverseness does not stop there. If we take a bullock from the seat of Mallee and we take it to an abattoir and on processing that bullock, on breaking it down, we take the carbon emissions of that abattoir over 25,000 tonnes then that bullock is responsible for the crystallisation of a tax of 25,000 tonnes by $25.40, $635,000 for the processing of that bullock. Who pays that? It goes all the way through the cold store, all the way through the butcher's shop and lands on the family pushing the shopping trolley. Why are they paying this tax? They are paying this tax because of the Green-Labor Party solidarity, but they do not respect the mandate of the Australian people, they do not respect the views of the Australian public. The only thing they respect is the Green-Labor alliance.