Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was ahead of Barnaby on it. I opposed it because I had been involved in business before I came in here. I was a manufacturer's agent who had to sell a product to keep 300 people working at the factory benches. If I did not sell, they did not have a job. That is why I knew this was one of the worst things that could ever come into Australia. I know what happens in these factories. I have been there. I was there for 20 years, striving to get my product out the door in competition with other manufacturers and in competition with imports. I knew what it was like. So the moment I saw this I thought it was just a disaster, and my worst fears have come to fruition.

What the Greens senator said shows me that she has a greater depth of knowledge on the subject than Senator Wong, and I suspect that is because it is the Greens' legislation. It is their pride and joy, their great claim. Senator Brown will go over to Durban in South Africa in a couple of weeks and he will parade around and say: 'Hey, look what the Greens have got. Look what we've done.' That will be the Greens' claim to fame. Why the Labor Party has gone along with it, I will never know. I will never understand how you can get cut to pieces, get flogged, lose your vote down to 26 per cent, cut to pieces by the Greens and still go along with it. I went through this with One Nation, and the only way you will ever come out of it is to fight back, not go along like a bunch of tame pussy cats. That is what you are—you are captive to the Greens. You have a fight out of this. It will be 25 per cent next, then 24. The Greens will be going from 13 per cent to 14, 15, 16. They are eating you, and you are too stupid to understand. When I came into this place and I looked across there at the government of the time, there were some good men in it. One was Peter Walsh. He just finds this so appalling. Senator Button would never have let this happen on his watch. There were doctors, there were solicitors and there was even—would you believe it—a waterside worker who had actually picked up a tool in his life and done something physical. Now we have a bunch of Labor Party union hacks, who have no experience of the real world, trying to run a country. None of them have ever picked up a tool in their life.

Senator Cormann interjecting—

Senator Thistlethwaite interjecting—

And that is about as far as you would go, digging a rose garden up. That is about as far as it would go.

I am opposed to this legislation because it is founded on lie after lie after lie. Senator Milne comes in here and quotes the Australian Food and Grocery Council and says everything is sweet. Well, Senator Milne, I disagree with your politics but I have never found you to be dishonest before. If you are going to quote something go and get an accurate quote. I will read it to you. It says:

… the Australian Food and Grocery Council … estimates that the scheme will cost the industry the equivalent of 4.4 per cent of operating profits … costs incurred as a result of the carbon pricing scheme … the players themselves, reducing their profitability and, in some cases, making them less competitive in domestic or export markets against players who do not face the same embedded carbon costs in their supply chains.

If you are making eight per cent profit, you lose 4.4 per cent—you have lost half your profit. If you are making 4.5 per cent or, say, five per cent on turnover—not a bad profit; it is not good but it is reasonable—you are almost in a minus situation. So, Senator Milne, do not come in here and misquote the facts. You do have some credibility, but when you do that you shoot yourself to pieces and you make yourself look almost as stupid as Senator Thistlethwaite.

One thing about Senator Thistlethwaite is this. There is an old adage in this place—and you have not been around long enough, Senator, to know it—that says, 'Don't open your mouth. Let people think you are a fool, because when you open your mouth you prove them right.' You are completely out of your class. You might improve in another five years here—doubtful—and you will probably translate from the middle bench up to the back bench. I think that is where you will probably end up.

Madam Temporary Chair, I will tell you why this is wrong. It is a fraud. It is the greatest Ponzi scheme ever perpetrated on Australia—'Put money in and everyone's going to get wealthy'. Well, let us look at some of the fraud. We are told that sea levels will rise. Sea levels have risen 32 centimetres in a hundred years—yes, they are rising—but to make the jump that they will go up 1.1 metres or two metres is a blatant, absolute lie. I have checked this with BOM. I have made speeches on it. I have checked it with BOM and anyone who wants to challenge it can go and look at my speeches.

One of the other lies is that we are going to get more countries on board and the Third World too. Burma, the Philippines, Indonesia, China and Russia are all going to be there by 2016, we are told. What a blatant lie. You know, Minister, and everyone in the world knows that you cannot penalise Third World countries and ask them to pay more for their food, more for their accommodation, more for their electricity—and most of them do not have it anyway. If you tell me that the assumption that everyone is going to be on board by 2016 is right, Senator Wong, you will be declared. You know it is not right. You know it is impossible to achieve.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN: Senator Boswell, please direct your comments through the chair.

Unless everyone gets on board on this it will not fly.

Another great lie is that only 500 polluters will pay—we can all live happily ever after because householders will receive lots of cheques, so it is not going to affect anyone because the polluters are going to pay. How can that work? How can that lie be perpetrated by the Labor Party and the Greens? Everyone is going to pay. For people with households, electricity will be going up by around 10 per cent, so you throw a few bob in for renewable energy. But where it is going to hit—and hit like a rocket—is industry, because electricity prices are going to go up by 30 per cent, or about a third, for industry. I had dinner the other night with a person called Trevor St Baker—I do not think he will mind me using his name—who owns ERM Power. I have known him for a long while. He has made a lot of money and he has created a lot of wealth because he owns a lot of generators. He told me about this. All I can say is that there a lot of people out there, a lot of people in industry, a lot of farmers and a lot of dairy farmers who have coldrooms and who think, 'Oh, we'll just put 10 per cent on. We'll be all right. It's going to be hard. It's going to cost six grand but it probably won't break us.' But it is not going to cost that. I advise everyone to go out there and talk to an electricity consultant, who will tell them what it is going to cost.

But the worst thing, Madam Temporary Chair, is this: this has never ever been modelled by anyone else but Treasury and Treasury are not allowed to release the model. You know that is right, Senator Wong. You took it on notice five times as to whether you would release the model or not—and you know you will not release the model, because the model is based on the assumption that the rest of the world is going to be in by 2016. That is crazy. It cannot be. The other day we saw a representative of Canada, a country roughly equivalent to us, saying: 'Not in the world! We just went out there and we ran a campaign and we wiped the opposition out on it.' America is saying no thanks. The whole world is turning against it. But the fact that you will not release the model is one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated on this nation. Senator Cormann and I have tried and tried and tried. Mr Ergas writes:

It has taken three months and 10 hours of questioning in Senate committees. Ultimately, however, the facts do emerge. And they did last Monday.

…   …   …

... Treasury's most senior officials have persistently claimed the opposite. In the Senate Select Committee ... Treasury said 'these models are publicly available.'

I asked the question:

So, if Professor Ergas were to go with a cheque in hand it would it be available to him?

Ms Quinn said yes, it would be. Everyone has tried it. Brian Fisher wrote a letter and said he had listened to Ms Quinn's statements and had gone out and tried to buy the modelling, but he could not. Mr McKibbin has also said he wants the modelling, but no one has ever been able to access it.

By 2020 we will be adding $33 billion to the cost of doing business and by 2050 it will be $1 trillion. Who knows what it will be—no-one has produced the modelling. Mr Phillip Glyde belled the cat when he said that no-one can do the modelling—there is not enough information out there for a third party to do it. Ms Quinn also said that modelling had not been released since 2007. That was well before the carbon tax was proposed. So, Senator Wong, don't you ever accuse anyone of dishonesty, because you have been dishonest. You have been totally dishonest—you have avoided, you have ducked, you have dived, you have weaved and you have never produced the modelling.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN : Senator Boswell, you will withdraw your unparliamentary remark.

What was my unparliamentary remark? What do you want me to withdraw?

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN: I am sure you know the standing orders well enough. You are not allowed to reflect on the honesty of a member of this place.

This is a very sad day for Australia and if I have to withdraw I do it with great reluctance.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN: Senator Boswell, you have not withdrawn the remark.

I will withdraw it because I have one minute and 18 seconds to get the rest of my message out. How can any government stand before millions of Australians and say this is not going to cost them anything, or will cost very little, when no-one knows what it is costing because no-one has the modelling? McKibbin wants it, Fisher wants it, Ergas wants it and the peak bodies want it because they want to know what they are going to be up for. But no-one has ever been able to get it and, Senator Wong, every time I have asked you or Senator Cormann has asked you or a number of other people have asked you, you have ducked and weaved and dived but you have never produced the modelling. I asked you five times the other day whether you would produce the modelling, and you said you would take it on notice. You are hiding the fact that this scheme cannot work. If it could work I could possibly have some support for it, but it cannot work—it never could work, and it cannot work because you cannot get the Third World in, because you will not get everyone there by 2016 and because you think it is just the 500 major polluters. The whole argument is built on dishonesty. (Time expired)