Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister representing the Prime Minister (Senator Evans), the Minister for Finance and Deregulation (Senator Wong) and the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (Senator Carr) to questions without notice asked by coalition senators in relation to the carbon tax, and by the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (Senator Conroy) to a question without notice asked by Senator Bishop.

The government claim that our opposition to this tax is creating uncertainty for the business community, but in fact it is the government’s approach that is creating uncertainty. Don’t blame the coalition for the current uncertainty in the business community; have a look at yourselves. This situation has been created by the government, because they do not have a policy—all they have is an announcement. They have come out and said they are going to have a carbon tax, and they are going to work it out, but it is going to be starting from 2012. That is what promotes concern from the industry sector. It is exacerbated by their relationship with the Greens and it is compounded by their broken promises. So don’t start blaming the opposition for the uncertainty that exists, particularly by government actions.

I asked Senator Carr today what modelling his department had done in relation to jobs. At least he did provide the fact that they had done no modelling—they had done none. He said to the chamber that he relied on others to do that modelling. But we know that there has been no modelling done on the impact on jobs of a carbon tax, or even the defunct CPRS, because the impact on jobs was an assumption, an input, to the modelling process. The government made the assumption at the outset that there would be no reduction in jobs and that employment would grow, so it is not a function of any modelling. Senator Carr should have done that work, to get an understanding of the impact on his portfolio. He is being negligent by not doing that work to get an understanding of the impact on his portfolio.

In fact, at estimates last week we heard that there are tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs that have disappeared from his portfolio in the last three years, since this government took over. And here is the minister who was so much in favour of manufacturing, the minister who was going to save manufacturing and manufacturing jobs in this country. He has completely failed: 87,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared from this country since he became the minister. He wants to impose additional costs on those business, and has done no work to get any understanding of what the impact of government decisions might be. Senator Carr says it is being done by others, when in fact it is not—as I said before, it is an input of the modelling that was done by the government. So they have no understanding of the impact of this tax on jobs, no understanding of the impact on manufacturing in regional Australia.

It was absolutely no surprise when the CEO of BlueScope Steel said that ‘manufacturing policy is now being directed by members of a government who show complete ignorance’. They do not want to listen. You can be part of any council you like. You can be part of the manufacturing councils, you can have input—but, if the government are not listening to you, what impact can that have? If the government do not want to know, what impact can you have? They are in complete ignorance; they do not want to listen. They are engaged in economic vandalism. These are considered statements by the CEO of a major Australian company in relation to the person who is directing manufacturing policy in this country—a person who does no background research, who has no understanding of what is going on, who does not want to listen and who does not seem to care whether or not there are manufacturing jobs in this country. What a complete and utter indictment on the minister.

But of course all of this is compounded by the government’s complete breach of promise in relation to this carbon tax. The Prime Minister went to the election saying that there would be no carbon tax. It was repeated and repeated in context in relation to statements that were being made about a carbon tax. To quote the Prime Minister:

I think when you go to an election and you give a promise to the Australian people you should do everything in your power to honour that promise. We are determined to do that.

It is an indictment on this government. (Time expired)