Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I rise to take note of the response tabled earlier today on the new fuel or vehicle emissions standards. While the government has a lot to hide on its plans to jack up car prices across Australia, it has decided to introduce the world's most aggressive emission limits on vehicles here in Australia that will penalise all Australians that are seeking simply to buy a car for their families, some to just go about and do their jobs as trades men or women or farmers or miners—people who have to have large vehicles to make money for their families and for our nation.

The government continually says that these new emission limits, these so-called new vehicle efficiency standards, will not raise the cost of cars because there is a similar scheme that operates in the United States. They have said this on repeat. It's obviously something in the first line of the talking points that have been provided by the minister's office. I doubt many of them have actually looked at what has happened in the US or how their scheme works. It became clear at Senate estimates a couple of weeks ago that the system the government is proposing is very different from what has operated in the United States.

The government is proposing a reduction in emission limits for Australian vehicles of more than 60 per cent over the next five years, so emission limits have to come down by more than half over the next five years. In the United States, in the last five years their scheme has only reduced emission limits by 25 per cent, so our scheme is double the impact of the US just to start with. On the other side of it too, under the government's scheme, car manufacturers will pay a penalty if their cars are sold above the limit. Of course, those penalties will be passed on to you as the consumer. The size of that penalty under the government's scheme is $100 per gram of carbon dioxide over the limits. That fine is actually three times the level that has applied in the US to date. On top of that, on another side of things, in the US, large vehicles like the RAMs and the F-150s that a lot of trades men and women use in the US are exempt. They're exempt from the US scheme! Here in Australia, your four-wheel drives, your LandCruisers, your Ford Rangers and your Toyota HiLuxes are all under the scheme. The government's distraction here—'Just look to the US'—does not hold water at all.

That's why the Senate has asked the government to produce the documents and produce the modelling associated with their proposed scheme so we can actually see what the impact on car prices will be. But, surprise, surprise, the government is refusing to release this information because, they say, it's a cabinet document. It's part of cabinet deliberations. This is a total abuse of the Senate's powers. It's an abuse of the orders that have been previously decided upon in this place. A government cannot and should not be able to just declare that any document is a cabinet document and therefore keep it hidden from the Australian people. This is simple. All we're asking for are the calculations that have been done to show the effect of the government's scheme. There is nothing secret here. There is nothing of national security interest. This material was funded by taxpayers and should be able to be viewed by taxpayers. There is no justification to keep it hidden.

In the limited time I've got, I just want to demonstrate why the government is keeping this hidden. The most popular car for sale last year was the Ford Ranger. It emits 188 grams of carbon dioxide a year. The government want to impose a limit on this car in 2029 of 81 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre. The Ford Ranger will be 107 grams over the limit. At a charge of $100 a gram, as I said earlier, that works out to be $10,700. These are the government's own figures. They're very simple calculations. We just want to see the modelling. There is a little bit more complexity to this, which I'll come to, but it's $10,700 extra that people will be asked to pay for a Ford Ranger.

As I said, a lot of people out there in our community have to buy a Ford Ranger. They have to buy a ute of that sort of size and weight to do their jobs as plumbers, as builders, as bricklayers or as farmers. Some farmers will need a four-wheel drive even more. You get a bigger impact on a four-wheel drive. You need those types of vehicles. There are no EV alternatives that can suit the purposes of a bricklayer in this country.

Yes, the government says that the cars—the Toyota HiLuxes and the Ford Rangers—will get more efficient over time, but they won't get more efficient to the tune of 100 grams of carbon dioxide reduction. They won't get more efficient to the tune of a 60 per cent reduction. Even if they get more efficient at a reasonable rate, it'll still mean thousands of dollars more in cost. We deserve to know exactly what the government's numbers are. What has the government been told on how much the extra cost will be? If it wasn't an extra cost, they'd be releasing this modelling—no doubt about it. The only reason they're keeping it hidden is they have something to hide in their plans to make us pay more for cars.