Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Finance, representing the Minister for the Environment, Senator Cormann. I refer to statements by power regulators that prices will be lower in 2014 and 2015 without the carbon tax. Minister, how will scrapping the carbon tax lower power bills for all Australians?

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr President, and congratulations on your appointment. I thank Senator Ruston for that question. The reason that scrapping the carbon tax will bring down the cost of electricity is that scrapping the carbon tax reduces the cost of generating electricity and reduces the cost of generating gas, and of course those cost reductions flow through in terms of lower electricity costs for families, for pensioners and for business.

The carbon tax is the tax we were never meant to have. Now it has imposed $15.4 billion of damage on the Australian economy so far, and it has only been in place for two years. It is the tax that we were never meant to have. It is the tax that went up again on 1 July this year. It is the tax which, in the lead-up to the last election, the Labor Party said they already had removed.

I warmly welcome Senator Bullock from the great state of Western Australia because, as recently as the WA Senate by-election, a re-run of the Senate election, he said, as quoted in The West Australian:

Labor is scrapping the carbon tax …

That was on 20 March 2014, the very same day that Labor was voting in this chamber to keep it. And guess what. More than three months later the Labor Party are still playing games. They are still playing political games and they are still playing procedural games, in defiance of the will of the Australian people.

The Australian people want the carbon tax gone. The Australian people want the $550 a year in lower cost of living that will come with scrapping the carbon tax. The Australian people want the boost to economic growth that will come with scrapping the carbon tax. The Australian people are sick and tired of the political games and the procedural games that are being played by the Labor Party, week in, week out, saying one thing to the Western Australian people in Perth in the lead-up to the Senate by-election but then doing the exact opposite on the very same day and ever since in this chamber. (Time expired)

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I would also like to ask the minister if he would advise the Senate on how scrapping the carbon tax will secure broader benefits for Australians across the board, and, in particular, how it will secure Australian jobs.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The carbon tax is pushing up the cost of electricity and pushing up the cost of doing business, without doing anything to help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, because all it is doing is shifting economic activity and shifting emissions to other parts of the world, where, for the same amount of economic output, those emissions are actually higher than they would have been here in Australia. Scrapping the carbon tax will help Australian manufacturing businesses become more competitive internationally again. It will help create jobs here in Australia based on a genuine improvement in our competitive position.

A number of regulators of electricity prices have already come out to say that lower electricity prices would be the result of scrapping the carbon tax: the Queensland Competition Authority, the New South Wales Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal, the independent Tasmanian Economic Regulator and the ACT Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission. And AGL, as a big electricity generator, has confirmed that if the carbon tax is repealed the price reductions will flow through to residential and small business customers. (Time expired)

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Minister, will you advise the Senate why it is important that Australian families and businesses benefit from the repeal of the carbon tax?

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is important because, as the Australian Senate, we should stand for maintaining our living standards. We should stand for building prosperity and opportunity into the future. We should support plans and decisions that will actually lead to stronger economic growth so that everybody across Australia will have the opportunity to get ahead. We should stand for bringing down the cost of living by reducing the cost of electricity and reducing the cost of gas. The Senate has this opportunity—and the Labor Party has the opportunity to fulfil its promises to the Australian people at successive elections: in 2010, 'There will never be a carbon tax under a government I lead;' in 2013, 'We have already removed the carbon tax;' and, in 2014, Senator Bullock saying that the Labor Party is scrapping the carbon tax—on the same day that Labor voted to keep it.

We have had this debate for long enough. The Australian people are very well aware of what is before this chamber, and it is time that we got on with it and took the pressure off Australian families and off business. (Time expired)

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Abetz. Is the minister aware that the President of Kiribati, in anticipation of his country being submerged by rising sea levels and storm surges due to climate change, has purchased land in Fiji for $8.7 million to relocate his people to avoid a humanitarian crisis? If the Prime Minister is aware of that, how does the government justify its five per cent emissions reduction target and its refusal to commit climate finance under its UNFCCC obligations to the small island states as they are displaced now?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the Greens for her question. I trust that she is not trying to play crass politics with the situation being confronted by the people of Kiribati. The people of Kiribati clearly have an issue that they need to deal with. But a quantum leap has been made from their difficulties to the domestic debate in this nation about the carbon tax. The carbon tax, as we have pointed out all morning, has a perverse outcome on the world's environment because what we are doing is exporting emissions from Australia to other countries whose emissions are worse and who have less control than we do in Australia. As a result, if you do want to have lower carbon emissions into the atmosphere, you would have to vote against the carbon tax because of its perverse outcome for the Australian economy which would see the shifting of jobs and economic activity out of our nation which has such an excellent record in relation to matters environmental in comparison to other countries. We can learn from the experience of Europe, where they tried the same thing, only to see their aluminium smelters and similar activities go offshore to Africa and elsewhere. Does anybody in this chamber actually believe that those new smelters in those other countries are delivering less CO2 emissions than was the case in Europe? Of course not. What the Greens are seeking to do is replicate that mistake for the Australian economy. We as a government will not be part of it, nor will we be part of your crass politics of trying to involve Kiribati in this situation.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Given the minister's answer, does he accept that Australia has a responsibility to put money into climate finance through the UNFCCC process in order to achieve a 2015 treaty, since climate finance is a major component of assisting those countries that are now being impacted because of emissions from countries like Australia?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As very good stewards, we as a government would seek to ensure that pollution is minimised to the greatest extent possible. That is why we as a government see the perverse outcome of the carbon tax. That is why we put before the Australian people, not only in 2010 but also in 2013, the Direct Action Plan—a plan that will see a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. I am reminded that Senator Milne runs campaigns against the renewable, sustainable forest industry in my home state of Tasmania and then champions the use of wood products from Indonesia. In Indonesia they clear-fell one million hectares of forest per annum without replanting a stick, whereas in Tasmania we were planting more trees— (Time expired)

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Given the minister's answer, what percentage of the Abbott government's 'five per cent below 2000 levels by 2020' reduction in carbon emissions will be delivered by the Direct Action Carbon Farming Initiative amendment about which he has just spoken—the whole five per cent?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not know whether I had a memory lapse, but I am not sure I referred to carbon farming in my answer.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is in your Direct Action bill!

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Milne, you have asked your question.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, as part of the Direct Action Plan, right. What I was talking about was the Direct Action Plan. The Direct Action Plan will deliver—

Senator Milne interjecting—

Senator Milne either does not want to hear an answer or just keeps interjecting because she is so knowledgeable on all matters. She did ask a question and, if she wants an answer, I am happy to oblige. The situation is that we believe the Direct Action Plan will deliver the five per cent reduction to which we are committed. I am not going to get into a game as to how much of that percentage will be delivered by each individual component of that plan, but we believe that the totality of the plan will deliver the totality of the five per cent to which we are committed.