Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Standing here today, discussing the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 and the related legislation, I am really quite amazed that we are debating the abolition of the carbon tax. When listening to the debates that have preceded, you would have thought that we were debating the issue of climate change—and I do not think that is what we are doing. The reality is that climate change is a matter of science, and it has been a matter of debate in a lot of other areas, but what we are actually talking about today is a carbon tax that appears, from all the evidence that has been put in front of me, to have been an absolute failed policy. You have to ask: is this some sort of veiled attempt to disguise what is really going on here—namely, defending the legacy of something that plainly did not work?

I have no issue whatsoever with many of the things that have been said today, particularly by the Greens, about some of the things that are happening around the world, but the fact is that the carbon tax has done absolutely nothing to help the things that you are talking about. The reality is that we are talking about a tax. We can sit here and call it any other thing under the sun that you want, but the cold, hard facts are that the carbon tax is exactly that: it is a tax—it is a tax on business; it is a tax on the people of Australia; it is a tax on our future. What has it achieved in terms of carbon emission reductions? Not a lot. Last week or the week before, I think, the Climate Change Authority came out and said that there has been a 0.1 per cent reduction in emissions and we have spent $7 billion in 12 months. So you would have to suggest that that is a pretty negligible result for the extraordinary amount of trouble, angst and anguish that we have seen and the money that the Australian economy has ploughed into this so-called initiative.

I listened to the comments of Senator Milne about all the environmental changes that are going on in the world at the moment. We talked about scallops, we talked about penguins and we talked about all sorts of things, but the reality is that at no time has anybody said to me, and at no time during her speech did Senator Milne state, what the contribution of the carbon tax had been or was intended to be towards fixing the problems which she was discussing. I think we just need to be very clear about what the particular bill we are debating is actually all about.

Another comment that was made by Senator Milne in her speech was that the government is refusing to accept the science of global warming. I do not think that is necessarily an accurate statement. I certainly accept the science of global warming, as does the government. What we do not accept is that, in the attempt to move the world to a position where we have reduced carbon emissions, we have to destroy every business, every economy, every region and every community in Australia in this hell-bent desire to reduce our carbon emissions by some extraordinary amount in such a short time. We believe that we need to move in a sensible, methodical and planned way to transition Australia's economy so that it can cope with a new world that has lower emissions and a clean energy future. I do not think anybody will argue with that, but making comments that the government does not accept the science of global warming and climate change is, I think, putting false information on the record.

Another comment that was made was that the reduction in energy usage is a result of people becoming more aware of the damage to the environment by large polluters. I put on the record that we have seen a reduction in the amount of energy usage in Australia over the last couple of years as a direct result of the extraordinary increase in the price of energy. Certainly, in my community, a number of times people—particularly our oldies, our vulnerable and those on very low incomes—have told me they are not turning on their air-conditioners on hot days because they cannot afford to pay for the power. I do not think that the reason they are doing it is that they have become more aware of the environmental impact of large polluters. I would suggest it is just a very sad reflection of the fact that they no longer can afford the luxury of being able to keep themselves cool on a hot day or warm on a cold day.

Let us look at the impact of the carbon tax on some of the more affected sectors. I have to say, coming from regional South Australia, that the most disappointing thing is that much of the serious impact of this tax has happened outside of the capital cities. We are seeing major, major impacts in our rural and regional areas. But, before I go onto the specifics of the rural and regional areas, we only have to look at the impact that this measure has had on our automotive sector—and nobody but nobody can walk away from the fact that the carbon tax had to have had an impact on the very unfortunate decisions that many of our car manufacturers are making—in choosing not to manufacture in Australia anymore. Four hundred dollars per car as a result of the carbon tax is just $400 added to the bottom line of every car that gets sold in Australia.

In more recent times, we have seen the issue with Qantas. If you look at the amount of money that Qantas has paid in carbon tax over the last 12 months and the amount of money it is projected to pay over the next 12 months, it makes a very, very big difference in its losses. If you take $115 million and add it straight back onto Qantas's bottom line last year, and stick $160 million, as is projected, onto its bottom line for the next 12 months, all of a sudden you have a situation where this company has to do a whole heap less housekeeping and look for a whole heap more assistance from government to be profitable again, because it is actually the government that has caused it to be largely unprofitable in the first place. So the best thing we could do for the automotive industry—unfortunately it is too late—and for Qantas, Virgin and Jetstar is to get rid of the carbon tax.

I need to talk about Rex. Rex is the airline that looks after regional South Australia and a lot of regional communities across the whole of Australia. It is absolutely the lifeblood of these communities in their ability to remain connected to their capital cities and the services that many of the people who live in these communities need. You only need to look at the fact that we have seen such an extraordinary centralisation of services in my home state of South Australia to realise that an airline is so important, because people who are receiving medical care or the like or require assistance often have to fly to the capital city. If we end up with a situation where we have caused a regional airline, be it Rex or the other regional airlines around Australia, to be so unprofitable that it will start having, through commercial decisions, to stop flying these routes, all of a sudden you have dealt an absolute blow to our regional and rural communities. Whilst, in another debate at another time, I would like to talk about the decentralisation of services away from the capital cities back into our rural and regional areas, the first thing that we can do here today is get rid of the carbon tax so that we do not put pressure on our regional airlines that would result in there being any chance whatsoever that they no longer find it commercially viable to fly.

Regional communities rely heavily on the movement of freight. Freight does not just come into the wharf on a ship; we have to move it both from the country into the city and from the city back out to the country. Much of the freight that is going from the country into the city is feeding the city. The previous government's suggestion that road transport be caught by the carbon tax was probably one of the most horrific things that anybody in regional and rural Australia had heard. The country's extraordinary reliance on road transport means that we need the most efficient and effective service possible. Once again, the carbon tax makes the cost of doing business in the country more expensive.

Country people rely heavily on energy. Recently there has been a lot of debate in the Riverland, a big wine-grape-growing area, about the very low prices that growers are receiving for their grapes. The growers would probably be able to withstand much of the decrease in prices for their commodities if their costs were not increasing so terribly. Sometimes grapes are grown in areas which do not receive adequate rainfall, requiring significant irrigation, but the costs of pumping have gone through the roof. So a major burden on the cost of doing business is exacerbated by massive increases in energy costs. The people who grow the food and the commodities for us all to enjoy while we are sitting around our dinner tables are the ones who are bearing the brunt of this unfair tax.

Not only do wineries face increased electricity costs, but the processing of grapes into wine also involves a huge refrigeration component. As we know from much of the debate on legislation relating to the carbon tax and from subsequent debates on the direct action policies, which are currently being developed by the government, the refrigeration sector has probably taken the biggest hit from the carbon tax. Supermarket owners have told me that the cost of re-gassing their fridges has had a major impact on their profitability. We are talking about 80 per cent increases in the cost of gassing a fridge since the introduction of the carbon tax. The most significant impost has been on the little guy, on our primary producers, on our rural and regional communities—the people who can least absorb these changes. To a large extent our growers are price takers; they do not have the capacity to pass on increases in prices to consumers. If a fresh produce grower turns up at Coles or Woolworths and says, 'I'm terribly sorry, my costs of production have increased,' the supermarket will say, 'Bad luck, I'll just buy it from your neighbour.' The producers are in a squeeze. I want to put on record the disproportionate impact of the carbon tax on rural and regional areas. We need to accept the fact that it is the people in rural and regional areas who grow the food and who carry this country. Rural and regional areas are where the economy is generated. We need to do a lot more to make sure that we are not just putting burden after burden on people in these areas.

It is not just me who is running around saying that the carbon tax has been a bad thing. Rural and regional Australia relies heavily on tourism. Tourism Accommodation Australia said in a submission: '

This inefficient tax needs to be repealed to put Australia’s accommodation industry back on a more level playing field with international competitors…Profit reductions of up to 12 per cent are attributed to the increased cost related to the carbon tax.

The Australian Retailers Association continues to call on the opposition and the minor parties not to play politics on this issue and to support the removal of the carbon tax. Tasmania has an election is coming up. The Australian Forest Products Association states:

Following the September 13 election the Abbott government was given a clear mandate to remove the carbon tax. We ask that the Senate promptly passes the bills to remove the carbon tax as it is in our national interest that businesses have certainty and policy clarity.

The National Farmers Federation—a group that represents many of our rural and regional producers—states

…agricultural businesses are primarily cost takers and consequently suffer the impost of any cost imposed through the supply chain.

That just reinforces what I was saying a minute ago about the unfortunate situation that our primary producers find themselves in, because they have no capacity to pass on costs to the consumer. We all know that the consumer ended up with rebates and handouts from the previous government. They were compensated for their increased cost of living by an increase in welfare and social payments. But nobody gave any of those rebates and handouts to our farmers, who had no ability at all to absorb the extra costs.

Next weekend the South Australian people go to an election and, after 12 years of Labor, they have a chance to decide on their future and on the government that they want to lead them over the next four years. I think Senator Edwards in his contribution this morning pointed out that the two states that are still under the control of the Labor Party—South Australia and Tasmania—both go to the polls on 15 March, in 12 days time. By all economic indicators, they are the two states that are doing the worst. In some cases I think South Australia is in the unenviable position of being below Tasmania on some of those indicators. That is a very sad reflection on the two remaining Labor governments in Australia. The states that have had the good fortune to elect coalition or Liberal governments have seen that they will have a much better economic future.

It is really disappointing that we are even standing here today, because, as was rightly pointed out by the Australian Forest Products Association, on 7 September the people of Australia went to the polls. Nobody in Australia could have been left in any doubt whatsoever that we were asking the people of Australia whether they thought the abolition of the carbon tax was something that they wanted. From the minute Julia Gillard, the then Prime Minister, introduced the carbon tax—I might say that it was a tax that she said she was never going to introduce—the then Leader of the Opposition and now Prime Minister Tony Abbott said, right the way through, that we would go to the polls in 2013 to abolish the carbon tax.

I cannot for the life of me work out why those 27 or 28 Labor senators and nine Green senators—so that makes up 35 or 36 or so people in Australia—and the 50 odd that sit downstairs—who, combined, number fewer than 100—seem to think that it is okay for them to ignore the will of the Australian people when they actually said on 7 September that they did not want a carbon tax.

Today we have a suite of bills before us. I would like to think that it is an opportunity for us to reflect and act on the wishes of the Australian public today and get this bill passed to abolish the carbon tax. That is because one of the things that we have failed to acknowledge in all this is that the government accepts that we need to do something in the climate area and in this space. The minister has come out with a direct action policy package. I know those opposite do not like it. I am not sure whether they do not like it because they do not like it, they do not like it because it was not their idea or they do not like it because they did not think of it.

But the reality is that the people of Australia said they wanted to get rid of the carbon tax. That is what we want to do. That is what we are asking those opposite to do. We have a suite of policies that we are putting forward to replace the carbon tax package. We are asking those opposite to act in a responsible and reasonable way. Let us look at the development of this particular package of climate initiatives so that we can work towards getting the outcome that everybody wants. I do not think there is anybody in this place who is going to argue against the reduction in carbon emissions, moving towards a clean energy future and ensuring the sustainability of the environment around the whole of the globe. Nobody would argue that is not something that we all want to do.

The difference is that the people of Australia elected an Abbott coalition government. The people of Australia have said to us, 'We are okay with how you are proposing to tackle this issue. We are okay with the fact that you are going to take into account the economic impacts and the social impacts on our regional communities, as you progress towards the goals that have been set.' They are the goals that we all agree on. Nobody disagreed with the five per cent reduction in emissions by 2020—apart from the Greens, who would have liked a 25 per cent reduction. If you can maintain your economy and you can stimulate your economy so that we can afford to make those kinds of changes, then maybe there is an option for those desires and an ability to increase some these targets so that we actually do get faster and better decreases in the emissions that are occurring.

I think what those opposite need to do is accept the fact that they lost election and let us just get on with fixing up the issues that we need to fix up, instead of filibustering and blocking every piece of legislation that the government tries to put through. It is legislation that the people of Australia on 7 September voted us in to deliver.