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

I'll take the interjection from Senator Brockman, which was, 'It's a number the government can't now say.'—except when it comes to a tax! Eerily enough, that promised power price reduction of $275 has materialised as the amount of tax businesses are going to have to pay per tonne of carbon emissions over the baseline—$275! So, they dubbed the Australian people by making a false promise, a promise they knew they couldn't keep and had no intention of keeping on election day, as evidenced by the fact that not one Labor member, not one Labor senator, has said in this building or on TV or in the papers that it remains their promise. I invite the minister to—at some point before one o'clock today, before the guillotine comes down on this debate, on this horrendous piece of legislation, where the Labor-Green deal will be voted on in this brave new world of backroom deals where we'll have consultation and collaboration if you agree with us but not if you don't, and of we'll freeze you out and you can just suck up the consequences.

The minister also talked about those costs and consequences of not acting, with no reference to the costs and consequences of doing what this bill will do. There's no modelling, or, if there is, we're not allowed to see it. We don't know of the 215 facilities captured under this legislation how they'll be impacted. As I said before, it is not beyond expectation to be able to go out to 215 facilities and say: 'Hey, if we impose on you a 4.9 per cent per annum reduction in emissions, how will it affect you?' They haven't even done that. We don't know what the impact will be. How many jobs will be lost? Many. Power prices going up? Guaranteed. And do you know what? It's the beginning of the end.