Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the outstanding Minister for Northern Australia, Senator Canavan. Can the minister advise the Senate of the economic implications of a new carbon tax, especially across northern Australia?

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

I thank the senator for his question. Taxes on our electricity sector are going to be incredibly bad for northern Australian development, because businesses in northern Australia face some of the highest power prices in our nation. The electricity sector in northern Australia is sparsely developed. Indeed, one customer in Gladstone accounts for 25 per cent of the power demand in northern Australia—the Boyne Island aluminium smelter. So any plan to increase electricity prices is going to have an enormous impact on growth and development in our North. It is going to limit that development and make it harder for businesses in northern Australia to make a go of it.

That is why plans announced by the Labor Party last week to implement an electricity emissions trading scheme, a fancy term for a tax, are going to be bad for northern Australia: because this tax is the sequel to another tax—it is the sequel to a tax that the Labor Party put in last time they were in power—and, like most sequels, this one is going to be worse than the original tax put in place by the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments. This tax is going to be worse because it is going to increase power prices by more than that tax. That tax that was implemented before was only going to increase power prices by 10 per cent. But modelling that they did while they were in government showed that power prices would go up by 78 per cent with a similar scheme to the one that they are looking to implement. A 78 per cent increase in power prices in our North is going to be destructive for development in northern Australia. It is going to make the power prices of businesses in the North even higher than those in other parts of our country. That is why the modelling that the Labor Party did before already shows that the impact of a carbon tax, including on jobs, will be highest in North Queensland and northern Australia generally, and these plans now would limit the government's plans to create jobs and investment in northern Australia.

Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is frightening. Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Can the minister advise the Senate how a new carbon tax would threaten the basic property rights of farmers and other landowners, especially, again, across northern Australia?

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

I thank the senator for his question. The plans of the Labor Party that I referred to last week not only go to implementing an electricity emissions trading scheme; they are also seeking to put in place a trigger in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act which would deal with tree clearing. We on this side respect property rights. We respect the fact that our farmers are some of the greatest environmental custodians in this land and they do not need an extra police force going onto their land telling them what to do on their property. We do not need a tree police in this country. We do not need a federal tree police oversighting the activities of farmers, but that is what the Labor Party plans. Indeed, when Mark Butler was interviewed on the ABC, he said: 'We will legislate to restore the restrictions that were in place before Campbell Newman's vandalism.' Well, it was not Campbell Newman; it was farmers of our country that cleared their property to develop their land, and, by implication, the Labor Party thinks they are vandals. We do not.

Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Can the minister advise the Senate how existing legislation balances environmental conservation and economic development, particularly in my home state of Queensland? Is the minister aware of any risks to this?

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

We already have an effective suite of policies in this nation to deal with these issues. We have policies in place to increase our renewable energy target of 23½ per cent. We have an Emissions Reduction Fund.

Thank you for coming in, Senator Dastyari, to listen to these very effective policies that the government has in place. I knew he would come in just at this point. We have a working policy to reduce emissions in our country. We have an Emissions Reduction Fund, a reverse auction mechanism, which is already being used by the World Bank and the International Civil Aviation Organization. Other countries around the world are looking at it as well. As announced last week at the signing of the Paris climate treaty, we are on track to meet and beat our 2020 target by the amount of 78 million tonnes of emissions. We do not need new taxes in this country; we just need to protect the environment in the ways we can for the least cost.