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

The Gillard Labor government is treating the Australian people with absolute contempt. There can be no more emphatic promise made by a Prime Minister in the shadow of an election—five days away from an election—than the promise made by the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, when she said, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' And, of course, this morning in the House of Representatives Labor members were kissing and dancing, celebrating in the aisles, celebrating their betrayal of the Australian people.

This whole debate about the carbon tax, as the Prime Minister wanted to remind us today, has been going on for some time. There has been debated over the last three or four years. The Australian people were entitled to believe that the Prime Minister had come around to their view. The Australian people were entitled to believe, in the lead-up to the last election, that the Prime Minister, having debated the arguments for and the arguments against a carbon tax, had come to the view that a carbon tax was not in the national interest. Given the debate over the three years of the last parliament and given the emphatic promise made by the Prime Minister and repeated by the Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer in the lead-up to the last election, the Australian people, as they were casting their ballot papers, were entitled to believe that the Prime Minister, having listened to all of the arguments, had agreed with their judgment that the carbon tax was a bad tax which would do nothing to reduce emissions, would push up the cost of everything, would reduce our international competitiveness, would cost jobs, would result in lower real wages while prices went up and would shift emissions overseas. But we now know that, in order to hold onto government, in order to hold onto power, the Prime Minister had to give in to the demands of the Australian Greens, who were the only political party going into the last election campaigning on the promise of a carbon tax. And here we are.

The lie continues today. This is what the Prime Minister said on radio in South Australia at seven o'clock this morning: 'The carbon tax is going to ensure we cut carbon pollution by 160 million tonnes in 2020.' I refer to the Treasury's own modelling. Do not take my word for it. I refer you to table 5.1, 'Headline national indicators', in the government's own Treasury modelling, on page 88. What does it say? It says that CO2 emissions in 2010 were 578 million tonnes. What does it say about the expectations under the carbon tax, described here as the 'core policy scenario'? In 2020, CO2 emissions would be 621 million tonnes. By my calculation, that is an increase of 43 million tonnes in CO2 emissions in Australia after the carbon tax has been imposed by this government. The cutesy, spinning sort of argument that the government puts is that emissions are going to be lower than they otherwise would have been. Emissions continue to grow under the carbon tax but they will grow by less.

Let us go to the next part of the interview that the Prime Minister gave in South Australia today. She then said: 'Under the carbon tax, we will continue to see incomes grow. Average incomes will go up by $9,000 to 2020.' Let us go back to the Treasury modelling to see what the Treasury modelling says about that. I invite people to go to chart 5.12, 'Real wages'. Real wages under the carbon tax are going to go down by just under six per cent. Real wages will be about six per cent lower under the carbon tax by 2050. And there is no end in sight. If you look at that chart, the line keeps going down and down and down. It goes off the graph. But here we have a Prime Minister who says that real wages are going up.

Let us work on the assumption that average incomes will go up. Full-time average incomes today are $70,000 a year. That means that the carbon tax will impose a $4,000 pay cut, effectively, in today's dollars. This is the ongoing deceit of this government. It is going on right now as we speak. Right now, the government still cannot tell the truth about their carbon tax. This is why they are running away from the debate. This is why they want to shut down the Senate debate on this—because they are embarrassed by how bad this legislation is, legislation which will do nothing for the environment. (Time expired)