John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I must comment on the 'short political gain' to the coalition that Senator Cameron referred to on this issue. I wonder then how he regards Ms Gillard's promise four days before the election that 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' I wonder if that was 'short political gain'? I think it would have been. What if she had said, 'If we win this election, we are going to introduce the biggest and most expensive carbon tax in the world and after three years we will move to an emissions trading scheme and, by the way, after two years we will inflict what Mr Sheldon from the Transport Workers Union calls a 'death tax' on the transport industry'?

But back to the debate about regional Australia. Senator Cameron only ever mentioned Mackay—he did not mention any more of regional Australia, where we now pay the highest electricity bills. In regional New South Wales we spend 25 per cent more on electricity than those consumers in Sydney. People in regional Victoria spend 30 per cent more on electricity than those in Melbourne. In regional Queensland, they spend six per cent more on electricity than those in Brisbane. This is the point that Senator Boswell made today about the cost on regional Australia.

We cannot have a Senate inquiry into this legislation. The house of review in our federal parliament cannot have an inquiry into the carbon tax. The government just shuts down the Senate and does not let it do its job. But in the recent inquiry by the Joint Select Committee on Australia's Clean Energy Future Legislation—it was an inquiry of just a few-weeks; it had to be guillotined and then shut down—the Nationals member for Dawson, Mr Christensen, quoted the following statement from Mr Garnaut's report:

From the commencement of an emissions trading scheme costs of agriculture inputs—electricity, liquid fuel and fertiliser—will rise. This will particularly affect parts of the sector where energy costs and energy-dependent costs are a large proportion of total costs.

These are the words of Professor Garnaut. When questioned about that quote Professor Garnaut said:

Yes, that is quite true and not at all inconsistent with what I have said before.

Mr Christensen, the member for Dawson, again quoted from Mr Garnaut's report, which said:

... imposing a carbon price in Australia ahead of similar carbon constraints in our trade competitors ... could result in some movement of emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries from Australia to other countries that impose less of a carbon constraint.

That is what Professor Garnaut says. This is the point—what is going to happen to regional Australia?

We know about the deal done with the Greens. But the Independents—Tony Windsor, the member for New England, and Rob Oakeshott, the member for Lyne—said the deal for putting this government in place was all about protecting regional Australia. It is not uncommon for Mr Windsor to do surveys in his electorate. He did a recent survey on taxation reform, euthanasia and same-sex marriage. He got 1,600 responses to the survey from right throughout his electorate. Recently I sent out 57,000 survey forms on the carbon tax in the seat of New England, where there are about 93,000 voters. I did not get 1,600 back—more than 5,000 were returned. Nine per cent of the forms were returned to my office. Those 9 per cent indicated that 89 per cent of the people in New England opposed the proposed carbon tax put together by Mr Windsor. He was the one who said proudly that one of the aspects of the deal to put Ms Gillard into the Lodge and Labor and the Greens alliance into government was the formation of the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee, driven by Mr Windsor.

In the last parliament Mr Windsor put up a private members bill for a massive 30 per cent reduction in emissions by 2020 based on 1990 levels, and by 2050 a massive 80 per cent. On ABC radio prior to the 21 August election last year, Kelly Fuller asked Mr Windsor why he put those bills in and he said they were not his bills; he was just putting them in on behalf of some of his constituents, representing his constituents. He ran adverts saying he was the people's representative, but he will not survey the people of New England on his proposed carbon tax that he has worked on putting together with the committee.

I sent 62,000 survey forms out into the seat of Lyne, held by Independent Rob Oakeshott, and 3,740 households want Rob Oakeshott to vote against the carbon tax and just 542 want him to vote for it. On that basis, 87 per cent of the people in Lyne do not want this carbon tax to proceed. These are the two Independents that keep the government in government. Are they the people's representatives? Not only were those forms returned, but there were many comments. There was a comment from Glen Innes saying:

... disgusting the way Labor twists their failures and blames others, Tony Windsor betrayed us. Labor do not care for the people—they are self driven.

One person in Inverell said they:

... will not vote for an Independent again State or Federal.

From Tamworth, where we had the biggest opposition to the carbon tax, 1,278 households opposed the carbon tax and just 217 supported it. Tamworth people said:

Windsor sold us out. We cannot get any poorer. What is next—will Gillard send us out in boats and get more in?

They are some of the many comments written on the survey forms. So what do we have? We have a carbon tax proposal for regional Australia. As I said, we already pay the extra electricity costs. We have the extra cost of many goods because of the freight component, and that is going to go up. There is even a tax on domestic airlines. What about crop dusters and other agricultural planes? They have been classified as domestic airlines. Crop dusters in Armadale will be paying an extra $40,000 a year on their fuel costs alone—to do what?

Last year China increased their consumption of coal by 434 million tonnes. Australia's total production of coal last year was 420 million tonnes. We are one of the few countries that actually burnt less than we did the year before—3.6 per cent less. China is now producing 51 per cent of the world's coal and they consumed, last year, 3,200 million tonnes of coal. As I said, their consumption increased by more in one year than the whole of Australia's output of coal—and we are going to save the planet! According to Treasury figures, this year China will produce 10.3 billion tonnes of CO2. That will go up to 17.9 billion tonnes by 2020—a 7,600 million tonne increase in CO2by 2020. Australia's production is going to go up 43 million tonnes—and we are going to change the planet. After this tax there will be no more droughts in regional Australia, no more floods, and cyclones will disappear.

This is outrageous. The cost is greatest on regional Australia. As I said, people in the Labor Party, supported by the Transport Workers Union, should hang their heads in shame—a $510 million tax a year on the truckies when they have already introduced their Euro 5 motors, which are far cleaner than the older style motors, with far less pollution, though they do use 10 per cent more fuel. Hence the truckies have already paid their tax by cleaning up their motors. Tony Sheldon from the Transport Workers Union told the Senate inquiry, chaired by my colleague Senator Cormann, that this is a death tax on truckies. I think the words he used were that we were sweating the drivers longer and sweating the trucks longer, putting drivers' lives at risk. That is what the Transport Workers Union says. I wonder whether those on the other side, who are supported by the Transport Workers Union, will heed the warning of Mr Sheldon. This is a cost on regional Australia when we need the truckies to take our exports to the waterfront, when we need so much brought into our regions where we do not have rail networks. If only we had spent what we spent on school buildings on the rail network, or if the pink batts money had been spent on our rail network or our ports, then we would really have been making progress.

Today at question time I asked about the effect of the carbon tax on abattoirs. There will be a $1.74 million cost to the Bindaree Beef abattoir, in Inverell, in the first year. That cost will not be inflicted on abattoirs in America or Brazil, who we compete against—especially America. We are battling to keep our markets in Japan and Korea et cetera, but the Americans will not face that cost. They will simply be emitting more. That is why this is so wrong. It is a cost to the very sector that provides our nation's wealth. We have heard from the Australian coal industry what effect it will have on them. As I said, last year China increased its consumption of coal in one year by more than the whole of Australia's production of coal—but somehow we are going to change the planet, change the atmosphere, lower the temperatures and the lower the sea levels. It is a farce.