Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Education) Share this | Hansard source

What a show we have seen here today from the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Senator Wong, trying to convince us that the carbon tax is a great thing for Australia, that it is going to create jobs. There is just one question I have got for the minister. If this carbon tax is so good, why did the Prime Minister say before the last election that she would not give the Australian people a carbon tax? If this carbon tax is so good, why did the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, say, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead'? It stands to reason that we might question that, colleagues. Here we are being told today by the minister, Senator Wong, that the carbon tax is such a good thing. Well, clearly before the last election the Prime Minister recognised that it was anything but a good thing.

Let us look at it. The carbon tax is going to put a huge financial impost on people right across this country, particularly in regional communities. And what is it going to do? It is going to increase emissions. It is going to increase emissions from 578 million tonnes to 621 million tonnes. What sort of stupid policy is that? This carbon tax, which we do not agree with, is not even going to do what the government is intending to do: reduce emissions, change the temperature of the globe—as my good colleague here, Senator Joyce, often says—by flicking a switch in Canberra. It is not going to work. It is the most stupid piece of public policy we have ever seen in this place, and that is saying something. It is not going to change the climate one little bit.

Those on the other side accuse the coalition of scaremongering. It is not scaremongering. People are genuinely scared about what this carbon tax is going to do to them. They know it is going to increase the price of electricity, they know it is going to increase the price of transport and they know it is going to increase the price of fuel. This carbon tax is going to hit regional Australia harder than anywhere else, particularly farmers, with those increased costs in fuel, electricity, transport and fertilisers. And guess what? Farmers—and I declare an interest: I am one—are the bottom of the food chain. There is nowhere for those costs to be passed on.

Farmers are going to wear it, and not only that. They are going to take a hit from the increased costs that are going to apply to abattoirs. An abattoir up on the north coast recently said it was looking at an extra cost of $500,000 a year for electricity. How can this minister, Minister Wong, sit on the other side of this chamber and tell us this is a good thing for the Australian people? It is an absolute furphy and they know that this carbon tax is a dog. It is a bad tax that is going to hit regional Australians harder than anyone else. Farmers are going to have to compete in a world market with companies that do not pay this carbon tax, and for what?