Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Based on their estimates of their flowthroughs. It is based on the fact that that is going to be an impost on Australian producers of food and groceries, whereas those producing food and groceries that are imported into Australia will not have to face that kind of increase. So bananas produced in the Philippines, or other products produced in Indonesia or Malaysia or Thailand, will not be affected immediately by these increases because those countries do not have the prospect of emissions trading schemes any time soon. Those prices will not be affected by emissions trading schemes in those countries or, therefore, in Australia, but Australian made goods and services will be and that of course includes food. That indicates a very serious impact on the capacity of Australian agriculture to produce goods and services and to keep Australian produced goods and services within reasonable price ranges.

The Prime Minister once said that he did not want to be the Prime Minister of a country that did not make anything. But, with respect, what his hasty, ill-conceived, badly thought through emissions trading scheme has potential to do is precisely that: to remove incentives from Australians to produce their own food.

This is effectively a GST on food. I remind those opposite that they campaigned against a GST on food.