Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for COAG) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It seems quite a long time since the moving of the adjournment last night. I had expected to be completing this speech on these so-called clean energy bills somewhat earlier today, but there we are. When the adjournment was moved last night one of the issues I was discussing in relation to these bills and my shadow responsibilities was the impact on housing in Australia that will occur after the implementation of this legislation. I was speaking last night about the increases that will result, particularly in rents, as investors in new houses are forced to pass on the costs of servicing those larger mortgages to their tenants.

When you increase the cost of building new homes you inevitably also slow the growth in new housing stock and push up the price of existing homes. We already have a shortage of rental properties, so an increasing shortage of rental properties will only see more low-income earners and more welfare recipients pushed into what is often known as marginal housing. A number of senators in the chamber are familiar with the issues around homelessness. I am not sure that I understand a policy that is ultimately going to exacerbate social problems such as this. It seems to me to be ill conceived. Equally perversely, the additional costs of new housing construction are going to punish those who want to build a house, as modern, newly constructed houses have the highest levels of energy efficiency and therefore the lowest contributions to carbon emissions of Australia's housing stock. It will deter the construction of new, more energy efficient housing, and this is at a time when Australia already has a chronic national housing shortage, which stands at 202,400 as of June 2010 and is expected to exceed 300,000 by 2014. I would really like to have more current, more up-to-date, figures but for reasons known only to members of the government the National Housing Supply Council was not reappointed for an extended period after the last election. In fact, it was in limbo for months and months, notwithstanding the fact that the relevant aspects of the red book for that portfolio indicated that it was a priority action. So we are awaiting a State of supply report which will show Australians and, more particularly, investors what the state of shortage is. In ignoring the important issue of the national housing shortage—and it is extremely frustrating in the estimates process to seek answers as to when we will see a new State of supply reportthe government also ignores the fact that the implementation of the carbon tax as it is constructed under this legislation will only exacerbate the problem, and that is a matter of great concern to members of the coalition.

We think, as members of the Liberal and National parties, that there is another way to go about this, and numbers of my colleagues have spoken about that previously. Overwhelmingly, Australians want to see something done about climate change and want to see Australia doing its part. Rather than using the blunt object of carbon pricing, the coalition's plan is to address climate change and to reach its five per cent emissions reduction target by 2020 by positive, direct action.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, come on. Put your heart into it.

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for COAG) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, Senator Evans, I can certainly assist with that. I could in fact bring some light-heartedness to the chamber if this were not so serious. What we see, particularly in New South Wales—and I do not know if other senators are experiencing it as well—is what could only be described as hysterical misinformation spread by members of the government about the coalition's position on these issues.

It is the stuff of politics that ministers visit electorates and shadow ministers visit electorates—it is the toing and froing of the political process; we are all used to it—and a couple of months ago I was very pleased to welcome the shadow minister for health and ageing, the Hon. Peter Dutton, from the other place, to the federal electorate of Lindsay in Western Sydney to meet with senior staff and officials from Nepean Hospital. Nepean Hospital is a very important tertiary hospital in Western Sydney. It serves, as I am sure you would be aware, Madam Acting Deputy President Stephens, a very important part of the Western Sydney community, not just around Penrith but also in the lower mountains and further afield.

Mr Dutton's visit to Nepean Hospital had us contemplating the impact of a carbon tax on a hospital like that, and the end result of that contemplation and our discussions on that day indicated that they would be facing an increased electricity cost of approximately $300,000 a year with no compensation, as the Energy Users Association assessments indicate. Not unreasonably, Mr Dutton and I raised this issue in the local community. We raised it through the local media and asked the local member, Mr Bradbury, what he thought about this potentially increased cost of $300,000 and how a hospital like Nepean Hospital, already stretched to the limit but doing an exceptional job at all levels of its operations, was going to deal with an extra $300,000 in electricity costs. I thought it was probably quite a reasonable question. It is his local hospital, they were keen to know how we thought they should deal with it and I was keen to know how he, as a member of the government, thought it should be dealt with.

As I indicated in my previous remarks, there is absolutely no contention on the part of the coalition that nothing should be done in relation to climate change. That is a fallacy. It is an untruth and it is something that we will contest when that point is raised at every opportunity because we have a policy in relation to direct action. So when I asked the local member in Lindsay what his response was to this potentially increased cost for Nepean Hospital it seemed strange to me that he chose not to answer that question but rather to issue a press statement which said that failing to act on climate change will come at a great cost to the health system over time. No-one is arguing that we should fail to act—nobody at all in this particular discussion—but he went on to say:

Without taking action, Australia is expected to experience higher rates of infectious and vector-borne diseases as well as food and waterborne diseases.

If that is not hysterical scaremongering, it is hard to imagine what might fall into the category of hysterical scaremongering. One expects that the vector-borne, and certainly the waterborne, diseases are going to head down the Nepean River to the weir in Penrith and infect the local community if we are not addressing climate change.

I reiterate the point that nobody is suggesting that climate change should not be addressed, but the contention of the opposition is that this is not the way to do it, that this would be a cost on all Australians—a cost on business, on families and on individuals, and one which they should not be expected to meet by a government that did not tell them the truth before the last federal election. The price of addressing climate change should not be lower standards of living and it should not be the exporting of the problem, along with Australian jobs, as I indicated yesterday.

In relation to what the impact will be on housing, in particular, I have indicated that the Housing Industry Association, for example, estimates an increased cost of $5,000 for the construction of a house. Any realistic person in this place, in this chamber or the other one, will know that in the community $5,000 extra is a deal breaker. Five thousand dollars extra on your budget when you are counting every single cent to build your new home is literally a deal breaker. Why should Australian families who want to look after their children and support themselves by building their own home—realising what is often cliched but is in fact very important: the great Australian dream of owning their own home—be faced with that impost because this government refuses to consider other options? We say that it is an unreasonable approach, that it is not an approach we will support and that in fact it is legislation we will oppose and repeal if we are elected to government at the next election.

Helen Kroger (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to acknowledge what a sad week this is for democracy and for those who have elected us to represent them as we debate the introduction of the clean energy package of bills, which we know is a fancy name for a carbon tax. It is a debate that the Prime Minister pledged to the people of Australia before the last election that we were not going to have, a carbon tax that we were not going to have. We all remember her solemn pledge only six days before the last election that 'there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead'. Because she broke that pledge, today we are debating just that: a carbon tax that every Labor senator on the other side of this chamber should be ashamed of. To those on the other side I say: where is your integrity? Stand up for your principles, honour your word to your constituents and listen to what Australians are telling you—not the small minority represented by the Greens, with whom you are in formal alliance, but the majority of everyday Australians, hardworking families, individuals and businesses across the country who do not want a carbon tax.

Whilst I am on the subject of those on the other side of this chamber, I find it passing curious that senators from Queensland, Western Australia and my home state of Victoria have been missing in action this week during this debate. Where are they? What is their position? And why are they not standing up for the workers and families in each of their states? We have not heard from Victorian senators arguing for this toxic carbon tax. And why is that? It is a really good question. It is because they know that this tax is going to kill the manufacturing industry in Victoria. It is going to plunder it in a state where 50,000 jobs are in the manufacturing industry. It is an absolute disgrace.

Prime Minister Gillard made a solemn pledge on behalf of her government to the people of Australia. We now know that her vow—her commitment—was nothing more than empty words and at best an immoral pledge to the nation. We now know that the words of the Prime Minister are meaningless. Australians question everything she says today. If there are any senators opposite who have any real integrity, they will honour that pledge and cross the floor to vote with us on this side. They will choose to honour their government's pre-election pledge and maintain their faith with their electorates. They will support minimising the cost-of-living pressure and will secure and support a manufacturing industry in challenging times rather than threatening jobs.

I received a letter on 17 October—very recently—from the Chief Executive of the Australian Industry Group, Ms Heather Ridout. This letter urged me to amend the carbon tax as it was 'a flawed approach to cutting greenhouse gas emissions'. If Ms Ridout wants this Labor legislation to be amended, then we know it surely must not be good for this country. In fact, we know this tax will be lethal to the manufacturing industry in Victoria. I say to Ms Ridout today that the coalition hears you. The coalition will do more than amend the carbon tax; we will repeal the carbon tax. Unlike those opposite, we will not break this promise. This is our covenant with the people of Australia, and we will stand by that covenant.

The government's abject failure, incompetence and dysfunction since the last election has been incomprehensible. The next election will not only be a referendum on the Labor government's policies; it will also be a referendum on this carbon tax. The fact that this government thinks it can effectively implement this vast structural economy-wide tax in Australia beggars belief. Why do I say that? You only have to look back over the last few months and the litany of disasters we have seen this government preside over.

Only this week we saw the government's tardy and incompetent response to the Qantas crisis. To those who are listening to this broadcast today, I remind you of the extraordinary cost blow-outs of the NBN, the $50 billion plus program that commenced without a business plan. I remind you of the BER, with billions spent on school halls without any consideration being given to seeking value for money. And kids are still waiting for their own personal computer through the computers in schools program. And let us not forget GroceryWatch, Fuelwatch and cash for clunkers. The list goes on and on. They are all government policies that have been poorly conceived and that in some cases have been knee-jerk reactions, such as the live cattle export debacle that cost businesses and Australia millions of dollars in lost contracts. And let us not forget the $900 stimulus package cheques under former Prime Minister Rudd—not so long ago—which supposedly saved us from the GFC.

How, then, can the people of Australia trust this government, who now supposedly want to save the planet, to be fiscally responsible with a new tax? How can we trust them with the biggest structural change, the biggest tax, we have seen when they cannot even manage the installation of pink batts in roofs? This government—with its political partner, the Greens—arrogantly claims that it can and will save the planet. What hubris and hypocrisy. If the government is so keen to cut emissions and save the planet, it should start by curbing Mr Rudd's travel and consequent carbon emissions. Maybe they could even use a commercial airline instead of chartering a 737 for one person.

The litany of failure continues with the GP superclinics promised across the nation, which are yet to be delivered. And we have witnessed a rolling immigration crisis that continues today. These are all disasters of the government's own making. We know the Prime Minister has lost control of our borders. She has certainly lost control of the national agenda, because the Greens are actually running that agenda. More importantly for her, she has to spend a lot of time checking behind her back due to the internal division that is racking the Labor Party, the caucus and even her own cabinet, if the reports we have heard of recent cabinet leaks are true. In this climate of absolute mayhem, the government is hell-bent on ensuring that Australia is the first and only nation that will have introduced a carbon tax by the time she and her deputy, the Leader of the Greens, Senator Bob Brown, pack their bags for the climate change conference in Durban. Not one of the world's developed economies has implemented a carbon tax—not Canada, which voted against it; not New Zealand, which axed the tax; and not the US, which has completely removed it from its policy agenda. And those on the other side of the chamber accuse us of being oppositional in defending the livelihoods and wellbeing of businesses and families. There is one thing that is certain about this sad state of affairs and that is that an Abbott government will repeal this carbon tax.

In my patron seats in Victoria, every day I hear firsthand accounts of the devastating impact that a carbon tax will have on them. Only in August this year I hosted the shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, in the electorates of Deakin and Chisholm, two of my patron seats in Victoria. I went, where the member for Deakin, Mike Symon, and the member for Chisholm, Anna Burke, dare not go—that is, to visit small businesses. As is the case with most SMEs in these electorates, the small businesses that we visited will be negatively affected by the Gillard government's toxic carbon tax.

We visited Daisy Garden Supplies in Ringwood East and Electric Cable Duct Systems in Box Hill South. I asked them: what would the imposition of a carbon tax mean for a small family business like yours? I stress: these people have mortgaged their homes to establish small businesses and have built them up over a long period in the hope that their families will take over when the fathers, uncles or brothers actually retire. Neil Mulcahy is the owner-operator of Daisy Garden Supplies. He has done an amazing job of building up this small business. He now employs no fewer than 60 people. That is not just 60 individuals; that is 60 families who benefit from the employment provided by Mr Mulcahy and his successful local business. It has taken Mr Mulcahy 31 years to build and develop his business. He is clearly a significant contributor in that area and to the community.

During our visit, Mr Mulcahy and his wife told me that his current monthly fuel bill was a staggering $100,000. Daisy Garden Supplies has about 60 trucks on the road, which deliver across the length and breadth of Victoria and beyond. Mr Mulcahy believes that the imposition of this government's toxic carbon tax will impact on his business dramatically. Whilst I was there with the shadow Treasurer, we also talked about the Australian Trucking Association's estimates, which he supports, because he has a number of his own trucks and is a big user of the industry. The Australian Trucking Association estimates that a carbon tax on them will cost their industry and their customers $510 million in 2014-15 alone. That is half a billion dollars in one financial year.

Mr Mulcahy's electricity bills and machinery bills will go up and the member for Deakin, Mike Symon, says that this is okay. Mr Symon, by his inaction on advocating for local small business, such as Daisy Garden Supplies, is essentially saying that he does not care about the effect of this toxic carbon tax on small business. He has been missing in action in Deakin. I have not seen him holding carbon tax forums across his electorate. The people of Deakin have not heard from him on this matter. I would go as far as to say that, by virtue of the absence of him saying anything on this issue, he has to be a strong and devout supporter of this toxic carbon tax.

But, above all, what his inaction demonstrates, which is even more compelling, is that he does not understand small business and how it operates. I guess we should not be surprised, given that he is yet another member with a union movement background. But it is very tragic for the people of Deakin that he has not been able to learn on the job and understand how these businesses operate since becoming the member for Deakin. One can only describe the Mike Symons of this world as gutless in their position on this matter. Before the last election he was a sitting member of the government, the same government that pledged that there would be no carbon tax. Now he stands by Prime Minister Gillard when she visits the electorate of Deakin, advocating and prosecuting the case for why a carbon tax should be introduced. For people like Mr Mulcahy at Daisy Garden Supplies there is not a dollar of compensation. There is no assistance, there is nothing—zip.

Daisy Garden Supplies is a classic small to medium sized family business and Mr Mulcahy will have to wear the cost or pass it on to his customers. It is abundantly clear that, for many of these businesses, passing the cost on to the customers is not an option because their profit margin is so slim. This will have huge ramifications on his capacity to employ 60 individuals and it may well have huge ramifications on the families of those 60 people.

In the electorate of Chisholm we met the owners of Electric Cable Ducting Systems. The member for Chisholm, Anna Burke, has some serious questions to answer—as does Mike Symon, the member for Deakin— which, I think, demand some urgent answers. Whilst the member for Chisholm has recently been very outspoken on the Prime Minister's Malaysia solution and has been very strident in her opposition to offshore processing, in particular to the Malaysia solution, she has been absolutely mute on the issue of a carbon tax and she has been mute in defending the interests of those in her electorate. Electric Cable Duct Systems, ECD, began as a small family business operating out of a shopfront, with a workshop at the back, in 1979. ECD is now an Australia-wide leader in electrical cable management. Thirty-two years on this family company, ECD, have outlets in New South Wales, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, Queensland, the Northern Territory, the ACT and New Zealand. Under a carbon tax the cost of aluminium, which is the main material that ECD uses to assemble their products, will significantly rise.

The world's largest aluminium company, RUSAL, recently launched a scathing attack on the Gillard government's carbon tax. It was reported online at news.com that in a submission to the federal government RUSAL said the clean energy legislative package, the carbon tax and emissions trading scheme, was a threat 'to the viability of the Russian group's major investment in Australia.' RUSAL owns 20 per cent of the giant Queensland Alumina refinery at Gladstone, the second largest alumina refinery in the world, which employs 1,800 people. The estimated cost of a carbon tax to this industry was in the order of $30 million to $40 million in the first year of the tax, and nearly $400 million over the next 10 years.

There is a very consistent theme if you go out there and talk to businesses, people who are actually creating jobs and wealth, which is that this toxic carbon tax is going to kill their businesses. My office was recently in contact with three families in Victoria who, on the government's own figures, will be worse off under the carbon tax. Each of these families entered their details into the household assistance estimator on the government's clean energy future website. I must point out that these families are operating on the assumption that the estimator is accurate. With good reason, the families who have contacted my office doubt the accuracy of the calculations and believe that they will in fact be worse off than what is estimated on this website.

Kathleen and Chris were one of those couples. They are young, married and have two kids. Kathleen worked for the first 12 months of their marriage before becoming pregnant and giving birth to their first son. Chris works in the finance industry and has received promotions in the time that Kathleen has remained at home, although he is the sole income earner. According to the government's own estimator, under the carbon tax they will be worse off. I have pages of examples of people who have contacted my office in the electorate of Deakin who have all expressed their concerns about that website. It confirms to them that they are going to be much worse off under this carbon tax.

In essence, what does it mean for these families? It means an additional financial burden and it means that businesses will be challenged in continuing to provide the employment levels they currently do. But what for? Why are we dealing with this now? Why is it so incredibly necessary for Australia to be the only nation to introduce an economy-wide carbon tax when all other countries have turned their back on it. As we know, and we have heard it this morning, it is because Bob Brown, the Leader of the Greens, who sits over there on the government side, wants to go to Durban with a carbon tax under his arm. (Time expired)

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I stand here in the chamber tonight and look down at the list of bills being considered together, there is a temptation to go through each of the bills, to talk about each of the schedules, to examine the purpose of the carbon tax, to look at the efficacy of the mechanism, to look at the compensation arrangements and to look at all of the consequential provisions of other pieces of legislation. That is a temptation, but I think to do so would be a mistake because the real significance of the debate we are having here today is not actually the provisions contained in the bills. The real subject matter of the debate is that of deceit. It is that of a government that went to the last election with the solemn pledge that it would not introduce a carbon tax. The exact phraseology used by the Prime Minister was:

There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.

She was echoed in that sentiment by the Treasurer, who referred to the hysteria that people who believed that a Labor government could possibly introduce a carbon tax were expressing. Anyone who had the temerity to doubt the statement of the Prime Minister that there would be no carbon tax under a government she led was basically branded an hysterical. The Australian people took the word of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer in good faith. They cast their ballots, whether it was for the government or the coalition parties or for another party, in the sure and certain knowledge that if Labor re-formed government they would not introduce a carbon tax. We know all too well and all too clearly that what the Prime Minister said before the last election represents perhaps the most blatant, clear and unequivocal lie in recent Australian political history. That is why I say that it would be a mistake in this debate to focus on the provisions of the bills. That is what the government would like us to do, and indeed that is what many government senators are doing: looking at the actual provisions of the bills. But to do so obscures the very reason that we are here in the first place: because those opposite are seeking to give effect to a fundamental breach of promise.

I do, however, at the outset, want to focus a little bit on my home state of Victoria. My state of Victoria will be hit first and it will be hit hardest by the carbon tax. The reason for that is Victoria has a great comparative advantage: it has access to a cheap energy supply; it has access to cheap brown coal. It has been the underpinning of Victorian industry. It has been the underpinning of the success of many Victorian businesses that they can access such a cheap and constant power supply.

Another reason I contend that Victoria will be hit first and hardest by a carbon tax is the importance of manufacturing to the Victorian economy. A few kilometres from my electorate office in Mentone is the centre of Dandenong. Dandenong is at the heart of the manufacturing precinct of Victoria. Something in the order of 44 per cent of Victoria's manufacturing output comes from the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, particularly based around Dandenong and Dandenong South. I have visited many manufacturers over the last several months. I have visited quite a few of them with Ms Mirabella, from the other place, the shadow minister for industry. I visited many of them with the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Abbott. And the story at each and every manufacturer is the same: the carbon tax will be bad for business.

I had the great pleasure a couple of months back of going to the annual general meeting of the South East Melbourne Manufacturers Association in Dandenong. There would have been 300 manufacturers there. The reasons I went along were twofold. Firstly, I like spending time with manufacturers, I like hearing about their business success stories and I like hearing about the people they employ. But the other reason I went along to the annual general meeting of the South East Melbourne Manufacturers Association was the guest speaker at that meeting, who was Mr Mark Dreyfus QC, the member for Isaacs and the parliamentary secretary for the carbon tax. I have to hand it to Mr Dreyfus. He did have a fair bit of front. He addressed these 300 manufacturers on the topic of the carbon tax and 'why it is good for your business'. That was an audacious thing to do, but clearly he has the strength of his convictions. So Mr Dreyfus was standing there, addressing 300 manufacturers on the subject of the carbon tax and 'why it is good for your business'. When it came time for questions, one manufacturer stood up and said, 'Mr Dreyfus: the electricity bill for our business is $120,000 a year and it is going to go up by 10 per cent.' Mr Dreyfus listened to that. Another manufacturer stood up and said, 'Mr Dreyfus, I can top that: our power bill is going to increase under a carbon tax by $130,000 a year'—an electricity bill increase of $130,000 a year! Mr Dreyfus's response to that was words to the effect of, 'Well, I think that just goes to prove my point that the effect of a carbon tax will be modest.' Another manufacturer got to his feet and said, 'Mr Dreyfus, we're in the medical devices business. One of our leading products costs $1,500 a year to produce. We have a margin on that product of $5, and the carbon tax is going to wipe that margin off.' The response of Mr Dreyfus to that manufacturer was, 'Well, I think what that tells us is that your business has other problems, doesn't it?' The arrogance, the condescension, the lack of understanding of what it actually takes to build a business, to invest your capital, to take a risk, to employ people—no understanding at all. The best that I can say of Mr Dreyfus in that circumstance was that at least he had the guts to front up, but I have to say he was on a hiding to nothing—and quite rightly so.

I have been spending a fair bit of time in my part of Melbourne. On Saturday mornings I like to get out, visit a shopping centre, set up a card table, put up a few banners—the wording on them, you may be interested, Madam Acting Deputy President, says, 'Say no: stop Labor's carbon tax', in lovely bright yellow letters on a crisp black background. I am usually flanked by two of those. And with some friends I collect petitions against the carbon tax. I have to say that I have been bowled over by the rush of people saying, 'Where do I sign? Where's a pen? Let me put my name down. How do I get rid of this government? Come on you guys, what are you doing? Can't you get rid of this government? How do we stop this carbon tax?' It has happened time and again. I set up my card table with my friends in the shopping centre of Berwick, in the seat of Ms Laura Smyth, the member for La Trobe. I have to say I was bowled over with people saying, 'Where do I sign? How do I stop this tax? How do we get rid of this government?' On another Saturday morning I set up my card table in Mordialloc, in front of the Safeways, in the electorate of Mr Mark Dreyfus QC, the local member for the seat of Isaacs. And again the same thing: bowled over by people saying, 'Where can I sign? How do we stop this government? How do we get rid of this carbon tax?'

On another Saturday morning I set up my card table at Dingley Village shops in the electorate of Mr Simon Crean, the electorate of Hotham. The same thing happened there with people saying: 'Give me a pen. Where do I sign? How do we get rid of this government? How do we stop this tax?' On another Saturday morning at the Cranbourne shops I set up my card table in the electorate of Mr Anthony Byrne, the member for Holt. The same thing happened again with people saying: 'Where do I sign? How do we stop this government? How do we stop this tax?' It was the same thing over and over again.

The reason there was that passion and the reason we obtained literally thousands of signatures from people was that these people felt like they had been gypped, if I can use that technical term. They know they were lied to. They know they were fibbed to. They know they were sold a bill of goods. They know they were told, 'There will not be a carbon tax.' They feel ripped off. They are not happy about it and they should not be happy about it because there should be a fundamental bond of trust between the electors and the elected. This government has broken that fundamental bond of trust and the Australian people are not happy about it.

Madam Acting Deputy President, I know you are interested in what I do with my Saturday mornings and you are probably also interested in what I do with my Friday nights. On the night that Her Majesty had a reception here in the Great Hall, I could not attend. I conveyed my apologies because I had a prior engagement. That prior engagement was in a hall in the suburb of Cheltenham in the south-east suburbs of Melbourne. Coincidentally, it happens to be in the electorate of Mr Mark Dreyfus QC, member for Isaacs and parliamentary secretary for the carbon tax. The occasion was a rally against the carbon tax and we had 90 or 100 people there. I do want to tell you in my own words what occurred there but I can do better than that—I can quote the words of Mr Dreyfus who obviously felt very strongly about the event because he wrote an opinion piece for Fairfax. I will just share a little bit of it with you. It is headed 'Baillieu government joining Abbott's circus.' It starts:

The Tony Abbott circus of lies and misinformation about climate change and the carbon price came to my electorate, Isaacs in Melbourne, last week. And this time the state Baillieu government joined the show, with no less than six state MPs lining up to deceive and alarm the residents and business people of southern suburban Cheltenham.

Quite frankly, I think it is good to see state MPs working on a Friday night. It continues:

On stage before a not-so-large crowd of about 90—

Not-so-large crowd of about 90! I think 90 people on a Friday night about a public policy issue is not bad. You have got to be pretty arrogant as a local member to discourage 90 of your constituents who are gathering on a Friday night. Anyway, Mr Dreyfus says:

On stage before a not-so-large crowd of about 90 were Liberal federal frontbenchers Andrew Robb and Senator Mathias Cormann (who came all the way from WA to recite his slogans), state Energy Minister Michael O'Brien, and ringmaster Senator Mitch Fifield. In the audience were state Liberal MPs Inga Peulich, Murray Thompson, Lorraine Wreford, Donna Bauer and Elisabeth Miller. That's nine Liberal MPs in attendance at the circus!

I actually think it is a good thing that you have got nine members of parliament out there meeting their constituents, talking to them and listening to them. That is not something to be disparaged. It is a good thing to have members of parliament out and about and to have their constituents there engaging with them. That is a good thing. Mr Dreyfus continues:

The performers – Robb, Cormann, O'Brien and Fifield spouted the usual Liberal false claims.

I have got a little bit of advice for Mr Dreyfus: if one of your political opponents has got under your skin do not let them know, do not write an opinion piece for the paper and just pretend it is water off a duck's back. Anyway, I am grateful to him for putting pen to paper. It has given a lot of encouragement to many to continue the fight.

My point is that Labor are out of touch. They still do not understand that you cannot fib and you cannot lie to the Australian people and expect them to say: 'That is okay. No worries. Think nothing of it.' That fundamental bond of trust, which I spoke of before, between the electors and the elected has been broken. It is bad enough that that has been broken. It is bad enough that this government did not do the decent thing and take the carbon tax to the last election. But we do not expect much better from the Australian Labor Party. It is bad enough that they did that. I am tempted to say almost worse but it cannot be worse than that, because nothing can be worse than lying to the Australian people. You would have thought, having lied to the Australian people, that to try and reclaim a bit of dignity and to try and reclaim a bit of decency you would ensure that there was a decent parliamentary process—that there was proper scrutiny in this place.

We know the analogy that many on this side have cited before of the goods and services tax and the new tax system. There were five months of parliamentary inquiry and countless Senate committees meeting concurrently to examine that important legislation. This package of legislation, which is before us here, will have a much greater effect, and not for the good of the Australian people. It would be an understatement to say it was disappointing that only two weeks were provided for the Australian Senate to look at this legislation: this week, which is apparently meant to be for all the second reading speeches, and next week for the committee stage. It is bad enough that a motion was put through this place to bring a guillotine into effect to terminate the second reading stage at 3.45 pm on Thursday of next week. It is bad enough that the guillotine was to be put into effect to terminate all stages of the bill, regardless of where we are at, and bring the matter to a conclusion at the end of Thursday next week. That was bad enough, but we have the incredible situation today where that is going to change. Tomorrow the government, with the connivance of the Greens, is going to seek to bring this package of bills to a conclusion by 11 o'clock next Tuesday. This is in stark contrast to the words of the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Evans, who said in his press release of 21 September that the Senate would have more than two full weeks to debate the clean energy package of bills. That is not true; that is a fib. The Senate will not have two full weeks; the Senate will not even have a week and a half. The guillotine is being brought forward. What we are talking about here is a gag on a gag. This is shameless, having a gag on a gag. We were promised that there would be two full weeks of debate. We do not think that is enough. Personally, I think there should have been about five months of appropriate examination.

But the ultimate deceit was Senator Evans's press release today, which is about putting a gag on a gag, headed 'Extended sitting hours for Senate to pass clean energy package'. Talk about doublethink—extended sitting hours. No, the government are not extending sitting hours, they are putting a gag on a gag. They are bringing a guillotine forward from a Thursday to a Tuesday. That is not extending hours, that is truncating hours, that is curtailing debate. It is an outrage. Compounding the fact that this government lied to the electorate at the last election, compounding the fact that they have not provided proper parliamentary scrutiny, what they are now doing is truncating the limited parliamentary scrutiny that is available. This is appalling. This bill should be opposed. This legislation should be opposed.

Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise also to speak on the Clean Energy Bill 2011 and related bills. To continue in Senator Fifield's vein, I too was very surprised when I sat down at my desk and found 'Labor and Greens shut down carbon tax debate'. Once again we are really being truncated, I guess you could say, and it looks as though 12 of our coalition senators who are very keen to participate in this debate will miss out. Where is this government going? The government refused to give the community a say on the carbon tax at the last election by promising not to introduce it. Once more the government is shutting down the debate. The government is desperate to ram through this legislation because it knows that it is electorally unpopular, as Senator Fifield just explained. I can certainly give many examples in Western Australia at the local shows where we had exactly the same reaction. I have never before had a petition that I have not had to ask people to sign, but they have come and asked me whether they can sign it, where do they sign it, what do they do and how do they go about it.

We have not even debated these hours but obviously it is a fait accompli. They want to limit the debate because the more the carbon tax is debated and more people understand how it will impact on their lives, the more they want to get rid of it. Instead of ramming the carbon tax through the Senate, the Prime Minister should take the bills to an election as a matter of urgency and decency. The coalition will make the next election a referendum on the carbon tax. If elected, the coalition will introduce legislation to repeal the tax as the first order of business. I am sure all those listening are fully aware of what the coalition government intends to do if they are successful in being elected at the next election. We will have a contract with the community to honour the mandate to scrap the tax as a priority, and we expect Labor to respect the mandate.

The tax is first and foremost an electricity tax, which is why it will not work. After $105 billion of taxes Australian firms, and through them the consumer, will still have to buy almost 100 million tonnes of foreign carbon credits at a cost of $3.5 billion a year by 2020. This is absolutely ridiculous and we are determined to ease the cost-of-living pressures on Australians and ensure that they will be better off under a coalition government rather than under Labor's carbon tax that will not even reduce Australia's emissions.

I will go back to my description of how all of this came about. If the Gillard government had been honest with the Australian people before the last election, we would not be here today debating these bills in their present form. The government was elected on a mandate of no carbon tax, and six days after the newly constituted Gillard-Brown government the carbon tax, funnily enough, reappeared. As the Australian people had not been consulted regarding the carbon tax, it was proposed to hold a community forum with 150 appointed delegates. These delegates were supposedly to advise the government on how to deal with the carbon tax. Of course, the forum did not eventuate and instead the government formed a new committee and held an inquiry into Australia's clean energy future. This inquiry had no terms of reference, which meant that all submissions were relevant to the inquiry. Of the 4,500 submissions that were received, it was interesting to note that only 70, two per cent, were published on the website and protected by parliamentary privilege. This means that the Gillard-Brown government listened to two per cent of Australians who had put forward submissions but the other 98 per cent have not been heard or were completely denied a voice. Is this representative of a democratic country? I think not.

This inquiry has been a farce and without the Gillard-Brown government releasing its modelling it means little to the Australian people. Without seeking the permission of the Australian community at either an election or a referendum, the government is taking billions of dollars out of our economy and giving it to foreign interests. At the same time it has ignored landowners' rights and has turned a blind eye while some of our best agricultural land is turned into a worthless landscape. It seems the Australian people have lost their basic right to democracy through this suite of bills. They have been misled by the Prime Minister's latest $25 million carbon tax advertising campaign. This advertising implies that the carbon tax will help clean up Australia's emissions profile. The shadow minister for climate action, environment and heritage, the Hon. Greg Hunt, said:

Under Treasury modelling, Australia’s emissions will actually increase from 578 to 621 million tonnes between now and 2020. The fact that the tax will raise $105 billion is not disclosed in the advertisements let alone the fact that emissions will go up.

There is no mention of the fact that in addition to the Carbon Tax, Australians will be sending $3.5 billion overseas each year from 2020 to buy foreign carbon credits. This fundamental plan is not raised anywhere in the advertising.

The entire system is based on the assumption that the United States will have a full national Carbon Tax or cap and trade system by 2016. This is both undisclosed in the advertising and utterly fanciful.

If this was a commercial advertisement, the ACCC in all likelihood would pull the Carbon Tax campaign from the air for being false and misleading.

It is interesting to look at the international perspective on clean energy and carbon tax policies. The United Kingdom climate change policy was recently reversed. They have radically reduced their commitment to cut emissions. George Osborne, a UK MP, said:

The United Kingdom will cut carbon emissions no slower but also no faster than our fellow countries in Europe.

The UK was committed to cutting emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. Europe is only committed to cutting emissions by 20 per cent by 2050. Mr Osborne continued:

We're not going to save the planet by putting our country out of business—

I wish this government would think the same way—

Britain makes up less than 2% of the world's carbon emissions compared to China and America's 40%. The renewables sector will never be a strong enough engine of recovery for the British economy.

Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs, John Baird, in Perth for CHOGM, confirmed that Canada will not be introducing a carbon price. Clearly the Canadians have realised that such a scheme, which fails to reduce emissions and is a huge cost to the economy, is not the most effective way of addressing climate change. When they went to their last election, the government won in a landslide because they declared they would not introduce a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme. Canada's rejection of a carbon model follows the United States, Japan and Korea distancing themselves from imposing similar policies.

The implications of this for Australia are significant as the government's modelling is predicated on there being an agreement between the major economies on an international carbon trading scheme. The failure of such an agreement will result in increased costs for Australian households and leave Australian businesses unfairly penalised compared to their international competitors. The carbon pricing mechanism is set at $23 a tonne. The carbon pricing scheme in Australia, a country which accounts for 1.4 per cent of global emissions, is going to generate more tax revenue in three months than the European scheme has in more than six years—and Europe accounts for 14 per cent of global emissions. How ridiculous is that?

As a Western Australian senator, I am deeply concerned about the impact of the proposed legislation on my home state, especially about the impact on rural areas. Despite not being in the top 500 big polluters and not being directly subject to the carbon tax, farmers face additional costs from the clean energy bills. These costs are estimated by the National Farmers Federation to be in the order of $16,000 per year for Western Australian grain growers. Tourism operators face 30 per cent higher energy costs, this coming at a time when the sector is struggling with a high Australian dollar and declining domestic tourism. Although the mining sector is expected to continue to grow under a carbon tax, conservative estimates for 2020-21 of employment forgone in existing coalmines due to emissions pricing are around 4,700 jobs in coalmines and 14,100 jobs in the Australian economy. More detailed modelling of the carbon tax by state governments shows that Western Australia will be significantly affected. The Kimberley will experience a reduction in output growth of five per cent by 2020—this is the largest reduction in growth of any region in Australia. The state government will need to find an additional $50 million in 2012-13 to fund the higher energy costs used in delivering services and more than half of Western Australia's households will be worse off under a carbon tax.

The National Farmers Federation, who are opposed to the carbon tax on the basis that it erodes the competitiveness of the agricultural industry in domestic and international markets, have estimated that the average Australian farmer will incur an additional $1,500 a year in costs under a carbon price of $23 per tonne with fuel excluded. That will erode their net farm income by 2.4 per cent. As a former farmer, I can assure you that farming incomes cannot stand up to that for very long—and of course as each year goes by, the cost of the carbon tax will go up. If the effect of the tax on transport costs is also taken into account, the impact is even higher. The NFF estimates that the average grain farmer in Western Australia will incur an additional $16,389 a year in costs, equivalent to a reduction in income of 6.5 per cent—that is adding the fuel on.

There is a lot of misinformation around relating to fuel and trucks. Trucks under 4½ tonnes are exempt from fuel tax, but once they go over that they are not. In Western Australian now, there are very few farm trucks, I think, apart from fire trucks, under 4½ tonnes and most of them have very large equipment. Road trains are now becoming part of the farming scene because with their equipment—the headers and the chaser bins—farmers can now take off grain faster than they used to be able to. The storage capacity therefore needs to be a lot greater. So there is the cost of fuel for all these trucks, and then there is the cost of electricity. The cost of diesel, especially when we get up into the Kimberley on the cattle stations, which have already had a huge hit with the live cattle export issue, is going to cause more problems as well.

Heading into 2012 and subsequent seasons farmers will face not only the ongoing challenge of variable prices, costs and seasons but also the consequences of the carbon pricing mechanism. Under the CPM Australia's 500 or so biggest emitters will have to pay for their emissions. The emissions price, as we have said, will be $23 a tonne of CO2 starting on 1 July 2012, increasing by 2.5 per cent in real terms per year until 2015, when a market based floating price commences. Directly affected businesses will investigate the feasibility of limiting their emissions. Some businesses will simply pay for their emissions and mostly pass on those payments to their consumers, while others will, in combination with restricting emissions and passing on costs, have to purchase credits, known as offsets.

The export oriented nature of the mixed enterprise farm businesses in WA causes those businesses to have a limited ability to pass on any additional indirect costs to their predominantly overseas customers. With no price cushioning, farmers will simply bear the additional small increases in indirect costs, leading to an erosion of their profit margins. Depending on what economists call the incidence of the tax on inputs affected by the CPM, for example electricity, a range of farm overhead and variable cost items may slightly increase. The end result is a possible reduction of around six per cent in the profit for a typical broadacre mixed enterprise farm business in WA. As I said, this reduction might seem minor to some people but I can assure the Senate that it is not a minor matter.

Also we have the impact on mining. The Minerals Council of WA considers that the carbon tax will erode the competitiveness of Australia's export and import competing sectors without any environmental benefit. The Minerals Council estimates that the minerals industry will face costs of $25 billion between 2012 and 2020 under the carbon tax package and believes that the decision to include emissions from coal mines is unique. These emissions are exempted under the European Union emissions trading scheme. Certainly as far as the export trade goes it is open slather and we have to cop this extra tax.

The Australian Tourism Export Council considers that the carbon price mechanism will impact significantly on the tourism industry, at a time when the high Australian dollar and declining domestic tourism are impacting on the sector. These businesses face electricity increases of about 30 per cent and there will be a significant impact on operators reliant on diesel or aviation fuel, who will face a reduction in their fuel tax credit of 18 per cent. The Managing Director of the Australian Tourism Export Council, Felicia Mariani, noted:

The bottom line is that the Government has left the tourism industry high and dry, providing little or no direct support or capacity for businesses to transition to a low carbon economy, or any compensation for the tour operators who are going to be hit hard by the increase in fuel costs.

Economic modelling commissioned by state governments examined regional impacts of the carbon tax. Such detail was not included in the federal Treasury's modelling. The Western Australian Treasury's 'preliminary assessment' of the clean energy package examined the impact on the Western Australian economy, the budget position and households.

Some of the key projected outcomes for Western Australia are: a 0.7 per cent projected increase in the consumer price index in the Commonwealth Treasury modelling which translates to an additional $50 million in additional costs in 2012-13 for state government agencies, growing to around $60 million by 2014-15; a combined impact estimated to be between $230 million and $280 million per year for state-owned electricity generation assets; and around 419,000 households in Western Australia out of a total of 810,500 households where the average cost of living impact of the carbon tax is greater than the Australian government assistance for the carbon tax.

The coalition will repeal the carbon tax legislation. The next election will be a referendum on the carbon tax. The 72 Labor MPs have betrayed their communities by voting for the carbon tax in the House of Representatives. The Prime Minister and the Labor government had no mandate for this legislation. The coalition will continue to fight the carbon tax. We will give the community a say on the issue that they were denied at the last election. If elected, the repeal of the legislation will be the coalition's first order of business. If Labor attempts to block the scrapping of the carbon tax, we will go to a double dissolution election. It will be a major attack on democracy if Labor then again rejects the voices of the Australian people. Australians are already facing substantial cost-of-living pressures and the carbon tax will only add to these pressures while doing nothing to reduce Australia's emissions. The coalition believes this carbon tax is absolutely the worst thing for Australia.

David Bushby (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is to the great shame of the Australian Labor Party that tonight I have the opportunity to contribute to the debate on the Clean Energy Bill 2011 and 17 related bills. The fact that I along with other senators have that opportunity is an affront to the Australian people, who went to the polls last August secure in the knowledge that whether they voted for the ALP or the coalition they were not voting for a carbon tax. This is because the leaders of both had categorically denied that such a tax would be introduced under them in government. Prime Minister Gillard went so far as to say, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' Yet here we are today witnessing a government that is led by Prime Minister Gillard seeking to have a carbon tax passed into law—a flip-flop most magnificent in its enormity and sinister in its deceit. A full 149 of the 150 members of the other place were elected under the policy of no carbon tax. A clear majority of this place were either elected or fought the last election under the policy of no carbon tax. Eighty-five to 90 per cent of voters Australia-wide cast their votes for candidates running under the policy of no carbon tax. Yet here we are debating just such a tax, with each and every government senator lining up to vote for a tax that they and their leader categorically ruled out just days prior to the last election.

Australian voters have a right to feel cynical about politics and those who practice the art. This is a clear case of politicians saying one thing to get elected and then doing something totally different once they have control of the treasury bench. The government's actions sully the reputation of all politicians and undermine the respect that Australians should feel for our democratic process. The government's only defence to this obvious and blatant deception implemented against the Australian people is that circumstances changed. Maybe they did, but not in any way that was not totally predictable prior to the election.

At the time that the Prime Minister made her solemn promise to the people of Australia that there would be no carbon tax under a government she leads, it was entirely predictable that the circumstances the Prime Minister and the ALP faced after the election would eventuate. Indeed, it was in just such circumstances that the Leader of the Opposition challenged her to rule out a carbon tax, a challenge that she took up and met by ruling out such a tax under a government she leads. So it is a bit rich for Labor senators to suggest in this place that the circumstances the ALP faced after the election were somehow so different that they required a breach of the solemn promise that they made to the Australian people. The fact is they were exactly the circumstances in which that promise was made.

The government claim that they had to breach their promise to the Australian people because things changed. But the only thing that changed were the numbers—they no longer had them and they wanted them. As a result, this Labor government proved itself willing to do anything to secure the numbers it needed to hang on to power after the election and entered into an unholy alliance with the far left Greens. They would not have had that opportunity had the Prime Minister not promised to not introduce a carbon tax. That promise made by the Prime Minister had a huge impact on an undecided voting public in August of last year, a public that clearly did not want a carbon tax. Without that promise, the Prime Minister would not have had to do unholy deals with the Greens or the Independents because the ALP would not have won the seats it did and Australians would not now be facing the likelihood of a tax on carbon. There is no doubt that the promise made by the Prime Minister on the eve of the election saved her seats because voters across Australia took her, the Treasurer and other Labor cabinet members, and in fact all Labor members and candidates at their word that they would not introduce a carbon tax. This is what saved them from being a one-term government. It saved them seats and given the way the numbers fell, that saved the Prime Minister's government.

What do the people of Australia feel about this? There is no doubt that they are angry, very angry. They feel betrayed, hoodwinked and duped by a dishonest leader of a dishonest party. At every level, Australians who voted Labor on the basis of the promise cannot wait to exercise their democratic right to change their mind and are clamouring for a new election to set things right. As I travel around my home state of Tasmania, the feeling is palpable. At shows and rural fairs, people literally line up to sign a petition against the government's toxic carbon tax. Young people go seeking out their friends so that they can bring them back to sign the petition. It is a far cry from the situation in Tasmania before the last election when many Tasmanians wanted to give the government the benefit of the doubt and give them another term. They felt comfortable in doing so, at least in part because of the promise made by Labor not to introduce a carbon tax. I doubt that so many of them would feel as comfortable with that decision now.

I have focused on the broken promise because this is crucial to any consideration of these bills, as the presentation of these bills in this place is a repudiation of democratic process and a representation of all that is wrong with politics in this country. Incidentally, earlier in this debate I heard government senators interjecting about core and non-core promises. I respond to those interjections because, just like accusations about Prime Minister Howard's GST, the raising of these issues is calculated to obfuscate the issue through misrepresentation of situations that are entirely different, so much so that comparing them is deliberately deceptive. After the 1996 election, the new coalition government found that the previous Keating Labor government had misled the public about the state of the public finances. The fiscal position was nowhere near as rosy as the then Labor government had represented prior to the 1996 election, so much so that many of the promises made by the coalition in the lead-up based on their understanding of the amount of money available simply were not possible to deliver.

Debate interrupted.