Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and Fair Competition) Share this | Hansard source

It was interesting to hear that contribution from Senator Feeney, because I just did not feel like his heart was in it when he talked about the role of the market. But, like every other Labor politician and particularly those who have been involved in state election after state election, they only ever want to talk about the opposition. They never actually want to talk about their own policy and their own agenda. So let us actually talk about what the Labor party have done in this area. By the very fact that they are seeking to compensate industries, to provide special one-off grants to certain firms and industries, the Labor Party concede that this policy is damaging to production in Australia. It is by those very facts that the Labor party concede that this tax will damage economic activity in Australia.

This tax is the equivalent of an eternal tariff. We once had tariffs on goods coming into Australia; but, under the insanity of the modern day Labor Party that has lost its soul to the Greens, we now have tariffs on exports from Australia. So, if someone makes a television or makes glasses or makes anything in Australia, they will pay a carbon tax directly or indirectly. But if someone wishes to import them, they will not pay the carbon tax. Everyone in Australia knows that no-one else in the world is paying a carbon tax of this quantum, of this magnitude or of this extent. I am proudly one of the free traders in this parliament, but I never thought the Labor Party would reach the insanity of consciously unlevelling the playing field so that those who provide jobs and employment in Australia, those who manufacture in Australia, have to pay a tax that those who import do not. It is the very definition of insanity, but it is the core of this carbon tax.

In this carbon tax are also two profound errors that signify the problems of a modern-day Labor Party that has lost its way. Firstly, there is the delusion that we can regulate the temperature of the globe; there is the delusion that Australia on its own can profoundly change the direction of the world. This is the same hubris that led the Labor Party and the Prime Minister to breach their fundamental words, the words stated down the barrel of that camera, which no Australian has not seen: 'There will be no carbon tax under the government that I lead.' There has rarely, if ever, been such a profound breach of trust with the Australia people. But I say to the Labor Party that they still have a chance—they still have a chance to repudiate their own lost cause and retake their soul from the Greens down in the corner there. The Prime Minister blames them for driving her to breach this promise and for driving her to make every manufacturing job in Australia more at risk than it otherwise would be, because all of those jobs, being energy intensive, now face a tax that a competitor who imports does not.

The other profound error at the core of this carbon tax is what Labor has used it for—that is, to recreate the culture of patronage in this country. What the Labor Party is doing today—although they would not answer Senator Ronaldson's question—is recreating a culture of patronage, where businesses seek the favour of government not only for survival but for economic good fortune. In this case, businesses are coming to the government simply to try to undo the damage that this government is imposing. What insanity do we have when the government levies a burden upon a business and then tries willy-nilly, at will and capriciously to hand out favours! What do the workers at other aluminium smelters in Australia whose jobs are at risk say? Under the Labor Party there is this curse: there is the urge toward patronage to reward one's supporters and to punish one's opponents. If any business in Australia does not realise that when they speak out against the damaging policy of this government this culture of patronage will be used against them to reward their competitors and to punish them for daring to have an opinion, then they misunderstand the modern-day Labor Party. The Labor Party has become the modern-day version of industry policy Tammany Hall, where you punish people and then use the power of patronage to potentially undo some of that damage.

The Australian people know that this is a damaging tax. They know it makes their lives more expensive. They know it makes their jobs more at risk than they would be without it. No matter what obfuscation and spin the Labor Party provides, it will not escape the judgment of the people when it is held to account for this broken promise.