Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

These words of false hope are espoused here—that most businesses have commitments of their own, so therefore there'll be no impact. Well, if that is the case, Minister—if this bill is not what we are saying it is; if our concerns are unfounded; if the quotes I've read into Hansard on behalf of businesses and communities who are worried about this and the impact it is going to have are not correct—then I don't understand why you can't give us a guarantee, why you can't tell us that power prices won't go up, why the price of train tickets in Victoria won't go up, why the rates in the Eastern Metropolitan Council Area of Perth won't go up and why not a single job will be lost.

I did find it a little odd, to use this term out of some report—I think it was from the Grattan Institute—that the increase in the cost of fuel will be negligible. I don't know what 'negligible' means. It's an indication that there will be an increase in the cost of fuel. But this is at a time when people are scratching around to find the money to pay the bills they have, because money doesn't grow on trees, as we understand; it's a finite resource. You can't just go down to the bank and say, 'I'd like to get an extension on my overdraft for the 10th time this year.' You actually have to make the books balance. Households have the same responsibility that business do and that government does.

To have an increase as a result of government legislation that we are currently debating is not a good outcome. I don't think it's acceptable for the minister to stand in here and say: 'You know what, we've consulted, and that's enough. We don't know what the impact will specifically be. We've got a range of measures that might help them with the problems they will face as we force them down the path of transition faster than they were planning.' Again, I think the answer to the question I asked multiple times, around how many of the 215 facilities are going to have a plan to reduce by 30 per cent of their emissions by the year 2030, which mirrors the government's commitment here under the safeguard mechanism, was no answer. I tell you what, as a senator for Tasmania, if I only had to go out and consult with 215 individuals about what it was they wanted me to do, I'd be doing it every day of the week. What a walk in the park to go and understand what 215 facilities need from government to ensure we don't have disastrous economic impacts flowing through into our communities—through our businesses, through local government entities, through transport providers—having an impact on every aspect of life.

Today—and the day before, and the day before that, and every day of this debate—we have seen a refusal by this government to make commitments to give assurances to the people of Australia that there won't be the problems we are asking about. Rule out job losses as a result of the safeguard mechanism. Give Australians that assurance that we will not lose jobs—that not a single job will go because the government is bringing in laws attached to dodgy deals with the Australian Greens, who have some ideological problems with many of our heavy emitting manufacturing industries. Give us that guarantee, and then everyone will be happy. The problem is we can't. Yes, they're business decisions. No, they're not the responsibility of a specific cabinet minister. But the government as a whole has a responsibility to the people of Australia, as custodians of our economy and economic wellbeing, to ensure that the laws and policies put in place in this building don't have a detrimental impact.

All I am asking, Minister, is: do you understand the impact on these businesses of your laws? Has there been any specific work done with these 215 facilities around what the laws, as set out in your bill, as set out in the dodgy deal reached with the Greens, state? Have you gone to the 215 facilities? It's not a massive task, noting the huge amount of consultation which has happened in a broad and nebulous sense with stakeholder groups and communities and those who bothered to write back in; and noting most of these entities are busy doing business, refining fuel, running train lines, processing our waste or whatever it might be, creating fertiliser for us to be able to grow the food we need to eat and keep costs down. The government haven't gone and done that. They don't know how many of these 215 facilities will have reduced, or will have plans to reduce, their emissions by 30 per cent by the year 2030. I would have thought that would be the first question you would ask specifically these entities captured by the safeguard mechanism. It's a targeted group. These laws will affect them.

Then, of course, there are all the flow-ons: the people that work for these facilities, the people that engage with these facilities or depend on the services from these facilities. I think about the fuel refinery we talked about in Queensland—two in the whole country. Here we are bringing in some laws that will have a detrimental impact on their ability to keep costs down. Of course, they are not going to absorb them themselves, and a government handout shouldn't be the answer. It'll be passed on to the consumer—the consumer that is already paying through the nose for everything they use to live their lives.

But the point is that there have been no assurances given around this. There has been no ability to assuage the concerns held—and held for good reason—by people in this chamber. It is not just some ideological bent. This is going to have negative impacts. With every question we have asked about whether the government have gone specifically to these 215 entities and sought to understand what impact these changes will have, we're met with, 'That's not the job of government. We've consulted. We're proceeding. There'll be some flexible arrangements.' That doesn't cut it. Australians want better. We're asking for better in this chamber. That we received the amendments not at the 11th hour but one second before debate started shows the contempt and, indeed, the desire to avoid scrutiny on the changes that are being made here. Had I more time, I would ask the Greens about their amendments, but I will go back to the fuel refinery because it's not just the people who work in it and it's not just the millions of Australians out there who drive cars every day to get to work, to take the kids to care or school or to pick up the groceries or whatever essential item of daily life they conduct by way of a motor vehicle but also the contracting businesses in regional towns and communities that employ many Australians. They're not directly caught up in a safeguard mechanism, but they're the people we're not even able to contemplate the impact on. What are the flow-ons? There's been no modelling about the impact of the flow-on consequences of this legislation. We don't know.

In 20 minutes we will be voting on disastrous laws that will have disastrous impacts, that will drive up the cost of electricity, that will chill the life out of the gas exploration sector and other sources of energy generation, that will drive up the cost of fuel, that will drive up the cost of train tickets in Victoria, that will drive up rates for ratepayers in the council I mentioned earlier, that will drive up the cost of fruit and veg, that will drive up so many elements of everyday life, and the minister cannot tell us why the government haven't gone and specifically sought responses around what might happen if we go down this pathway. Two hundred and fifteen facilities—I don't think it is a stretch of resources for the Australian government over the course of 10 months to engage directly with each of them, to understand what might happen in all of the areas I've talked about. In all of those—