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

I can understand why the Greens are very touchy about this. The Greens voted in favour of a gag which in the past they said was evil. The Greens are embarrassed about the impact that this tax will have on the Australian people. The Greens are here wanting to protect the Labor Party because they know that Labor will pay a price for their betrayal of the Australian people at the next election. Of course, the Greens today will be celebrating because they have been able to suck the Australian Labor Party into their policy, even though they know it will be all economic pain for Australia without any environmental gain for the world. This is a tax which will impose a cost of $1 trillion in today's dollars on our economy between now and 2050. That is nearly the whole of our GDP for the whole year. It means that, effectively, between now and 2050 every Australian will have to pay for a whole year for nothing to pay for the impact of this carbon tax. And this Labor-Greens carbon tax will see $792 billion in our money go overseas to pay for permission for us to keep the lights on here in Australia.

The government released some modelling, and the modelling, of course, was completely inadequate. The modelling used assumptions that lacked credibility. The modelling used assumptions, for example, that the rest of the world would be part of a global trading scheme by 2016. That is not going to happen. The US will not have a trading scheme by 2016. China will not have a trading scheme by 2016—or ever. And the modelling that was done by Treasury never even assessed the impact of the carbon tax on jobs, yet we have a Treasurer, Prime Minister and Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency who claim that the carbon tax will not have an impact on jobs. Let us be very clear: the government's modelling never even assessed the impact of the carbon tax on jobs.

The one thing that the modelling did show is that, supposedly, achieving a five per cent emissions reduction in Australia by 2020 is now cheaper than what it would have been if we had passed the CPRS. A couple of years later, starting later, it is now apparently cheaper to achieve a five per cent emissions reduction by 2020 under the carbon tax than what it would have been under the CPRS. So much for the argument prosecuted by the government that we need to act now because the price is going to go up; if we wait another couple of years, perhaps it will be cheaper again, Minister. Your argument just does not make sense.

And the government refuse to release the information in relation to their modelling that would have enabled proper scrutiny of that modelling by third parties. Clearly the government had something to hide. The political objective that the government pursued with the Treasury modelling was to send a message out into the community that somehow this carbon tax could be introduced without having much of an impact on people. They were intent on making people believe that there is just going to be a minimal impact—a 10 per cent increase in electricity prices, six per cent reduction in real wages by 2050, $1 trillion cost to GDP by 2050—but the Treasury modelling underestimates what the true impact of the carbon tax is going to be.

This is the world's largest carbon tax. The US has none and will not have one in the foreseeable future—perhaps ever. China has none and will not have one in the foreseeable future—probably ever. Europe does have an emissions trading scheme, but the price on carbon in Europe is less than half of what is proposed in Australia, significant sectors of the economy are excluded and there is up to 100 per cent protection for emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries. So this carbon tax here in Australia is completely non-comparable with what is imposed in other parts of the world. The government makes the point that somehow India and China are making significant efforts. Don't look any further than the government's own modelling, because about India it says very clearly in black and white that the government does not believe that there will be any mitigation in India. In relation to China the government now believes that emissions in China by 2020 will be 1.8 billion tonnes of CO2 higher than what they thought three years ago when Kevin Rudd was pursuing the CPRS.

This is a tax which will push up the cost of everything. This is a tax which will make higher-emitting overseas manufacturers more competitive than even the most environmentally efficient business here in Australia. It will help higher-emitting businesses in other parts of the world take market share away from lower-emitting businesses in Australia. It will see emissions shifted from Australia to other parts of the world. That is not effective action on climate change; this is an act of economic self-harm.

Let me be very clear: the coalition will of course vote against this bad tax which is based on a lie. Labor will stand condemned for its role in supporting the Greens carbon tax policy by pushing this bad carbon tax through this parliament. We will vote against it and the next election will be a referendum on the carbon tax. If we win the next election we will look forward to opposition leader Bill Shorten sitting side by side next to Prime Minister Tony Abbott in voting against this bad tax, because we all know Bill Shorten knows that this is a bad tax for Australia. Bill Shorten knows that this is a tax which pushes up the cost of everything and which will cost jobs in particular in the manufacturing sector—and all of that without doing anything to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

I conclude my remarks on this amendment here. Yet again: Labor senators will stand condemned in history and, before that, at the next election for their role in pushing this tax through this parliament today. This is formalising their betrayal of the Australian people. This is locking in their broken promise. There can be no more emphatic promise than that there will be no carbon tax under a government led by Julia Gillard, and of course the only reason we are going to have one is that Prime Minister Gillard was too weak to stand up for the national interest against the bullying of the Greens.