Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health Administration) Share this | Hansard source

That is what I thought I had heard the minister say—the cost you face and your capacity to pay. So, rather than looking at this on the basis of our objective being to help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, on the basis of accepting that under a global scheme—if there truly were a global scheme—an industry like the LNG industry would do very well or that we do not want to disadvantage an important Australian industry which can help reduce emissions as well as help grow our economy, before there is a global scheme the minister says, ‘We’ve set the 66 per cent instead of the 94.5 per cent on the basis of capacity to pay.’ That is a tax. It is just a tax. In the absence of an appropriately comprehensive global agreement the additional cost faced by the LNG industry is nothing more and nothing less than a tax. It is not about achieving policy objectives.

The minister says, ‘You’ve just spent another $2½ billion.’ No. What I have said is you should perhaps raise another $2.6 billion less. I remind you that this government is one that is always very good at raising taxes and increasing spending. On coming into government they raised $2½ billion in tax by imposing a tax on the North West Shelf, which of course comes straight out of Western Australia and gets spread around the rest of the country. This is a very eastern-states-centric government, of course, and we have made that observation before.

I will not hold the chamber up much longer. The overall proposition that we are pursuing with this amendment is that, if we are serious about helping to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, we should be facilitating and encouraging, not constraining, an industry like the LNG industry in Australia. If we expand our exports of LNG into countries like China, Japan and India, where LNG can displace coal as an energy source, we will have a net positive effect in terms of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, whereas this flawed legislation will help reduce emissions in Australia in a way that will actually see emissions increase in other parts of the world. It will arguably see emissions in other parts of the world increased by more than what we would produce here in Australia. To impose sacrifices on the Australian people—to pursue a policy which will push up the price of everything, cost jobs, put pressure on the economy and put our energy security at risk without helping to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions—is not in the national interest and is not effective action on climate change.