John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

My apologies, Mr Acting Deputy President. They've changed seats. My sincere apologies. Senator Ketter—instead of Senator Watt—here you are opposing coalmining, but how do we produce steel? Out of coking coal. We have high-quality coking coal, some of the best in the world, and the steel we produce is magnificent steel. As I said, there are 90,000 people employed, plus a huge number of people in employment on the downstream side.

You want to keep manufacturing here. Well, the problem we've got in Australia is the cost of doing business here compared to the rest of the world. What's one of the main costs? One of the main costs is electricity. Remember 2010, when Labor was in power? 'There'll be no carbon tax under a government I lead.'

Senator Carol Brown interjecting—

Yes, I think Senator Brown remembers that famous quote: 'There'll be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' Of course, along came the member for New England, Mr Tony Windsor, and he stamped his foot and said, 'I'll get behind you on one condition: that a multiparty climate change committee be formed.' And what did we get? We got a tax of $9 billion a year and growing—nine thousand million dollars in tax. It put electricity prices up. What does that do for manufacturing here? It means we are uncompetitive.