Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The carbon tax is a bad tax based on a lie. The original deception of the Australian people was in the lead up to the last election, when the Prime Minister promised that there would be no carbon tax under a government she leads. Even now, the Labor-Green alliance continues to deceive the Australian people. The reason it wants to rush this legislation through the parliament this week is because it knows that every day that goes by with more parliamentary scrutiny, more flaws and more deceptions will be exposed.

The Labor-Green alliance wants people to believe that the carbon tax and the emissions trading scheme which is to follow will reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, but the carbon tax will do nothing of the sort. It will not even reduce emissions here in Australia. In the past, when we debated the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme legislation proposed by the former Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, I was concerned that the proposal was to reduce emissions in Australia in a way that would just shift them overseas into areas where emissions would be higher than they would be in Australia. To a degree that is still true under this bad carbon tax because, while emissions under the carbon tax will be somewhat lower in Australia than they otherwise would be, under the government's carbon pricing package emissions in Australia will continue to grow.

Do not take my word for it. When I asked Senator Wong today during question time to explain and confirm that she was not prepared to do so, but this information comes directly out of the Treasury's own modelling; it is there in black and white. Emissions now are 578 million tonnes. According to the Treasury modelling, under the carbon tax and the emissions trading scheme, emissions in 2020 will be 621 million tonnes. So emissions will go up. The government argues, 'Yes, but emissions will be lower than they otherwise would have been, so it is fair for us to claim that somehow emissions will go down.' Okay, if your argument is that something is falling even though it is going up, on the basis that it will be lower than it otherwise would have been, what about jobs? What about real wages? What about the economy? The Treasury modelling shows that, under the carbon tax and the emissions trading scheme, Australia's GDP will be 2.8 per cent lower by 2050 than it otherwise would have been. Using the government's rhetoric and spin in relation to emissions, that means that the economy is actually going to shrink. Economic growth is going to fall. This is the government's language. The Treasury modelling indicates that under the carbon tax real wages will be more than five per cent lower by 2050 than it otherwise would be. So real wages are falling. If you use the government's argument that emissions in Australia are falling even though they are going from 578 million tonnes to 621 million tonnes, because they will be lower than it otherwise would have been, then that means that real wages will fall, because they will be lower than they otherwise would have been.

The point here is that the carbon tax—a tax that the people of Australia do not want and which the government is pursuing and ramming through the parliament in defiance of the Australian people—will push up the cost of everything, will reduce our international competitiveness, will cost jobs and will result in lower wages. It will do all of that while emissions will continue to grow.

One final observation in relation to some of the comments by Senator Carr on local content is that if the Prime Minister were serious about achieving more local content she would scrap her carbon tax, which will make locally manufactured goods more expensive. Under the carbon tax we are in a ludicrous situation where higher-emitting manufacturers overseas will become more competitive than lower-emitting businesses in Australia. As higher-emitting businesses overseas take market share away from us emissions internationally will go up, not down. This whole carbon tax is a joke. It is a bad tax based on a lie. The Labor Party knows it, which is why it wants to ram it through the parliament.