Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I do thank the member for Barker for his question and I appreciate his concern to ensure that businesses in South Australia are given a fair go. The truth is, the carbon tax is an anti South Australian tax. It is an anti Australian tax, but it is certainly an anti South Australian tax because the list of South Australian businesses that are going to be damaged, and are being damaged, by the carbon tax is a rollcall of South Australian blue chips. There is the Nyrsta smelter at Port Pirie which is being hit $7.4 million a year by the carbon tax. There is the Pelican Point Power Station, with a $28 million a year hit from the carbon tax. But it just gets worse. Adelaide Brighton Cement has a $62 million a year hit from the carbon tax. And there is Santos, perhaps South Australia's best-known company, a very important part of our economy, with a $76 million hit because of the carbon tax.

The only people who want the carbon tax to stay are the Greens, and it is high time for the Labor Party to side with the people and not with the Greens and repeal this carbon tax. We have heard from the Treasurer already today the statement by Australia's four big business groups, the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Council, the Minerals Council and the Australian Industry Group, who say:

Australia's carbon tax is one of the highest in the world and is making our key industries less competitive every day it stays in place.

For small business especially, this has been a major burden that has reduced profitability, suppressed employment and added to already difficult conditions.

The government knows this. Business knows this. The people know this. The Leader of the Opposition and the Greens seem to have wax in their ears on this, but I regret to say, Madam Speaker, the carbon tax has a friend in South Australia and that is Premier Weatherill. He seems to be happy to have the people of South Australia continue to pay $550 a household more than they should. In fact Premier Weatherill said last year that the carbon tax is a 'fact of life' that he was actually looking forward to. He said, 'I am looking forward to a carbon constrained future.'

Well, I want South Australia to be unconstrained. I do not believe in unnecessary constraints on the South Australian economy. Let us have a low-taxing government here in Canberra and let us have a low-taxing government in Adelaide too.

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