Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is also to Senator Abetz, Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Heritage. I refer the minister to Senator Minchin’s advice that Senator Ian Campbell will be absent this week due to a trip to China. Can the minister confirm that part of the reason for Senator Campbell’s trip is to open a Roaring 40s wind farm in China? Isn’t Roaring 40s the same company that was forced in July to abandon plans for new wind farms at Heemskirk in Tasmania and Waterloo in South Australia because of Senator Campbell’s failure to increase the mandatory renewable energy target? Is the minister aware that in my home state of Tasmania a related manufacturing plant at Wynyard will close in December and a component subcontractor will retrench staff, with a total loss of up to 100 jobs? Why is Senator Campbell allowing Australian jobs and investment in the renewable energy industry to be sent to China?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The answer to the first two questions are: yes and yes. Can I disabuse Senator Sherry of some of his misapprehensions—although, in fairness, I do not think they are misapprehensions; they are a deliberate attempt by him to spin the Labor Party’s rhetoric on mandatory renewable energy targets. As Senator Sherry well knows, the policy that the Labor Party took to the last election, and that they are still espousing, would mean the wholesale export of jobs from Australia to China and other countries. The people in Senator Sherry’s home state, and my home state, of Tasmania, who live in places like Georgetown and who earn their incomes from places such as Bell Bay, or the zinc works, or the Norski Skog Paper Mills or the Wesley Vale Paper Mill or the Burnie paper mill know that the cost of energy is a significant contributor to the efficiency of the global markets. If the price of power were to increase with the increased mandatory renewable energy targets suggested by the Australian Labor Party, these businesses would be severely prejudiced—not to mention the pensioners who would have to pay the increases in each and every one of their energy bills.

Once again the Australian Labor Party are seeking to position themselves as the green party, whilst forgetting about the pensioners and honest workers of this country who are employed in the zinc works and at Norski Skog in Tasmania. That is why over the past 10 years the term the ‘Howard battler’ has come into vogue. Those people on pensions and those who work in facilities such as Georgetown and the zinc works in Lutana know full well that they are protected by the sensible policies of the Howard government and they will not have any truck with the sort of nonsense the Labor Party is espousing on mandatory renewable energy targets. In relation to Vestas, in the north west of Tasmania, the government has announced that it will seek to support those workers. Mr Mark Baker, the member for Braddon, has done a fantastic job in championing their cause whilst fully recognising that, if the Labor Party policy were adopted, thousands of Tasmanians would be thrown out of employment because of increased energy prices. That is what Mr Baker, the member for Braddon, has so effectively done. He is ensuring that all the jobs are in place at the Burnie paper mill and elsewhere and that the workers who will, unfortunately, be losing their jobs at Vestas toward the end of the year are looked after. That sort of sensible, commonsense approach has become the hallmark of the Howard government.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I would remind the minister that the question was about the 100 workers who will lose their jobs as a result of the government’s energy policies. Further to this issue, are any Chinese threatened species at risk from the wind farm in regard to which Senator Campbell will cut the ribbon tomorrow? What assurances did Senator Campbell seek that the Chinese wind farm does not represent a threat to pandas, given that he often compares the threat to pandas with the threat to orange-bellied parrots?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The last time I checked, pandas cannot fly, but I know that when it comes to Labor Party policy, pigs do fly.