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

I find it absolutely astounding that, with only 215 captured facilities, with months of consultation and with a government claiming to be interested in issues like the cost-of-living, driving down power prices, not offshoring jobs and making sure that legislation actually works, that the minister can't tell me in a general sense how many of the 215 facilities—we're not talking about millions of entities here. We're not talking about tens of thousands. We are not even talking about thousands. We're talking about 215 specific facilities that the government haven't gone to seek to understand the material impact these laws and, in addition to the laws that were put on the table, the amendments that were made as part of the dodgy deal between Labor and the Greens would have. I don't find it acceptable, as we are hurtling towards being forced to vote on this legislation, that we can't be told whether every single punter in Victoria that uses V/Line to get to work, to go to visit their parents in aged care or whatever they might be doing, is going to be paying more to catch a train because of the safeguard. You don't know where these entities are at, yet you want us to vote. The Greens are content, having scored their deal, to support this and wave it through. You can't tell us about V/Line and you can't answer general questions about the 215 facilities and where they were at with 30 by 30. Let's move to a couple of other specifics. Hopefully there will be some advice forthcoming.

Aurizon have three facilities listed under the safeguard mechanism and Pacific National have one. In the Australian Financial Review today—and I'm sure that, if you're not aware of the article, others that are supporting you will be or will take this time to familiarise themselves with this reporting—there is a report that Pacific National will invest hundreds of millions of dollars over the next five years to reduce emissions. It will have to spend a further $12 million a year by 2030 on offsets to avoid being penalised under the government's changed safeguard mechanism. According to this article, the extra costs that are going to be imposed on rail freight will be passed on to the customer. This goes back to the point that we are not talking about millions of facilities here with some sort of blanket coverage where it's all very nebulous and hard to quantify. We're talking about 215 specific facilities. Can you tell me, Minister: as we hurtle towards a guillotine that Labor and the Greens have agreed should be in place to have this economy-changing and economy-destroying legislation brought into place, what are the extra costs that are going to be imposed on Australian consumers who utilise these services? Does the government or the minister agree that transporting freight by rail produces less emissions than moving goods by heavy trucks on the road network?

Perhaps you could also tell us whether any modelling has been done around the extra emissions that will be generated through the use of road transport to transport goods as opposed to rail transport. Noting that this is all about driving down emissions, I argue that it's about driving up power prices and driving emissions offshore. In this case it seems, based on the information being provided by rail freight companies, it's about driving up emissions here, because chances are, we'll be putting goods on trucks that are not covered by this mechanism, and there will be more carbon emissions because people will not be able to put goods on trains. So let's start with that. Let's see how we go. I hazard a guess we won't get an answer, but I'll get some rhetoric and some Labor talking points, and then we'll go to the next question.