Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is a very sad day, despite what Senator Crossin might like to tell us—not because the coalition lost the vote on the carbon tax in the House of Representatives but because the Australian people have lost a great opportunity to develop our economy; they have lost the ability to control our resources and our growth for the next 40 years. It is a shockingly bad day for Australia.

It would appear that Senator Crossin and Senator Cameron join Senator Wong and the Prime Minister in being completely delusional about what they are going to achieve here. Why would we expect the Prime Minister to be anything else? We cannot believe what she says because this tax, despite her frantic efforts to say otherwise, continues to be based on an out-and-out lie. So why would we be surprised that this government is delusional about what will be achieved? Senator Wong would have us believe that the economy and the number of jobs will grow under this carbon tax proposal of the government's. Perhaps she should check with a few other people before she says this—and not just the opposition.

In my own state of Queensland we now have a large number of state owned corporations telling us about the losses they are going to have under the carbon tax. Of course, this information has not been supplied openly, in the great tradition of the Gillard Labor government, hiding its Treasury modelling, kicking and screaming and shrieking at any attempts to get real information. This information has only become available through right-to-information actions undertaken by the Courier-Mail, which reported that Queensland Rail expects that its costs will go up by more than $5 million per year for the next three years.

In Queensland we have already seen the values of the state owned power generator, CS Energy, and of Stanwell Power and Tarong Energy written down by more than $1.1 billion because of the carbon tax. The Gladstone Ports Corporation has told us that its costs will rise by $2.4 billion next year. All of this adds to the costs of transport and to the costs to householders. No-one, including Minister Wong, could possibly believe that the economy and the number of jobs will grow.

Perhaps one of the most classic examples of this—and one of the most ironic—is BlueScope, which had intended to build a co-generation plant that would cost $1 billion and reduce the company's emissions in Port Kembla by nine per cent. They have now decided that it no longer makes economic sense to build that plant and that they will build the plant in stages, not in one go. BlueScope has said that instead it will close down one of its blast furnaces, and that will halve emissions. That is great for the government: it has halved emissions. What a great way to achieve it! A thousand jobs are out the door but, gee, we have halved emissions. I am sorry, Minister Wong, but you cannot have growth in the economy and in jobs with this tax. There is a much better way to do this. The coalition has always supported the putting of a price on carbon. It is not this price; it is not this way; it is not at this time. The direct action plan of the coalition, with encouragement for the development of renewable energies, will actually help the environment of Australia without costing thousands and thousands and thousands of jobs. It is a travesty to hear this government talk about jobs and manufacturing and suggest that in any way they have taken into account the real costs that will be forced on the Australian people on this extraordinarily sad day. Manufacturing is in the doldrums now, manufacturing will get worse and this government has no idea what to do about it.

Question agreed to.