Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would be interested because, unfortunately, when you are a big resource player and when you have industries, you tend to want to export whatever you make, dig or process. We had the carbon tax, which drove up the cost of doing business in this country in comparison to the ability of other countries to produce the same goods. You are all probably getting a little bit ho-hum about it, but it is economics 101. It is demand and supply. If you cannot supply global products, if you cannot supply products which we are proud to make, dig, process or grow here then you will not be competitive. If we put taxes on these growing areas of our economy, we are not going to be competitive. We export 60 per cent more than what we consume of what we grow. We certainly cannot use all of the ore or coal that we have—all of those sectors. But it is, 'Oh, no. We'll have a carbon tax. What we'll do is show our costs of production are disproportionate, and we'll put us at a direct disadvantage to other countries which we're up against.' Well done! That is a good way to drive business out of this country!

Then we had the renewables. That is the next one. I am glad Senator Gallacher is in the chamber. Because of his Labor colleague former Premier Mike Rann and his lax planning laws and investment policies and his high rebates on tariffs, 53 per cent of the nation's wind farms are now in South Australia. By virtue of that, we now have the third highest energy costs in the world. Well done, Premier Mike Rann! We have 53 per cent of the wind farms and no baseline energy. I know Senator Gallacher's patron seat of Grey has just closed its coal fired power station. Well done! You are useless and hopeless at managing an economy. Do not lecture us on what we should be doing here. (Time expired)