John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The electorate of Bennelong, which I serve, is a diverse electorate in many ways. We enjoy diversity in culture, with the Chinese and Korean communities making up almost one-quarter of the population. We boast diversity in business, with blue-collar factories, plazas of small enterprises and the Macquarie business park, the third largest CBD in Sydney, housing major corporations. We incorporate diversity in socioeconomic position, with wealthy riverside houses to large commission buildings. Despite all the variation of this constituency, the one common thread is that the residents and businesses are struggling to make ends meet.

These are not complaints about the prices of luxury items but concerns about the cost of items that are absolutely essential for survival: food, electricity, gas, water and petrol—not to mention increasing rents and mortgage interest rates. These struggling Australians talk to me about their problems because it is the obligation of government to implement policy agendas to minimise the impact of rising prices and work to prevent a further decline in the quality of life of those who elect us as their representatives. And yet time and again we see this government acting wilfully and disrespectfully to our electorate, whether it is through the mining tax, the flood tax or, the topic of this debate, a carbon tax.

I use the word ‘disrespectfully’ because this government went to the voters last year with a policy of no carbon tax. Just two days before the election Prime Minister Gillard was quoted as saying:

I rule out a carbon tax.

Three days earlier Prime Minister Gillard said:

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

So who is really leading this government?

Sure enough, here we are today debating the government’s proposed carbon tax. In fact, it took Prime Minister Gillard just 27 days to go from ‘I rule out a carbon tax’ to:

I think the rule in, rule out games are a little bit silly.

This was a backflip to be admired. We Australians love sports. We love the Olympic Games every four years. Our previous Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, had captured the imagination of the sporting public with his gymnastic abilities to backflip. He had practised in minor events but, at the Olympic event in Copenhagen, when the gold was up for grabs and the ‘greatest moral challenge of our time’ was the stake, he scored a 10 with a perfectly executed backflip and capitulation on the subject of climate change.

His co-author, understudy and loyal supporter—the Tonto to his Lone Ranger—not only was able to learn the art of the backflip from very close quarters directly from the master but inevitably was able to add to his acrobatic style. When her chance came to enter the main arena around midnight, there were reassuring promises to ‘her’ Australia that there would be no carbon tax. Her backflip performed—with a twist. The twist came on the perfect landing with the announcement that there now would be a carbon tax. The twist came for her Australians that lay on her torture rack of living costs with just another little twist to add to their pain—the pain of the cost of living in Australia under a Labor government. Previously the Prime Minister had shown her interest in sports by claiming that there was more chance of her playing full forward for the Western Bulldogs than seizing the top job from Kevin Rudd. Another perfectly executed backflip was required and performed with distinction.

The other great thing about the Olympics is swimming. Our swimmers are the greatest the world has ever seen. We now have our top performer seeking another personal best for her country in the swimming pool of red ink. During her previous Olympic performances they were able to accumulate a $96 billion debt, but our new queen of the pool, valiantly assisted by her training partner, the evergreen Senator Brown, is seeking to exceed this amount in record time. Of course, all of these masterful displays of sporting prowess and achievement are best viewed on your flat-screen television brought to you by that most wise and effective government policy: the $900 stimulus payment. Well, the good lord giveth and the good lord taketh away.

When the backflip landings are complete and the races are finished, what are we left with? In a country that once had the highest rate of homeownership, our next generation and those who come to our shores for a better life are deprived of the opportunity of homeownership—a stake in Australia. The predicament that our young families and newest Australians face is the escalating cost of housing prohibiting them from establishing what used to be our national right of homeownership. Just for insurance that this will never happen, with insufficient rental properties and subsequent market forces applying upward pressures to rents the cost of living becomes the final roadblock. As if their path is not hard enough, it will be this generation of new Australians, when this government is through with their reckless spending and their unprecedented ability to generate debt, who will be given the task of paying it all back.

This tax will not only hit your home; it will hit every single item you purchase, every business that you deal with and every price you pay. This will be the tax that keeps on taxing. This tax is designed to curb our use of electricity through some very rudimentary economic logic. Several months ago the Prime Minister stated in a speech:

Over the past three years residential electricity bills have risen by more than 40 per cent across Australia—

and followed this with the comment:

I understand how much pressure this is putting on families.

This is pressure that will be stretched and heated with a carbon tax.

Former Prime Minister Rudd admitted that a carbon tax would push up power prices by almost 20 per cent in just two years. The New South Wales Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal approved electricity price rises of 35 per cent over three years but pushed this to 60 per cent if a carbon price were introduced. Even the government’s own climate change committee are in agreement, with one of their key advisers, Rod Sims, stating that carbon price plans were:

… estimated to increase wholesale electricity costs by 60% by 2015.

The United States, Japan and Canada have all recently rejected a policy of electricity price rises like those proposed by this government. Isn’t this enough already? Are we not getting the message? Do we really need a carbon tax to add to these increases? Will that be the metaphorical straw that stops people using the services that are essential to their survival?

There is a clear distinction here between different points of view. New to this place, I am seeking to learn from our leader, who believes in small government, lower taxes and the right to make your own decisions. What better summation could be made than our leader’s comments in this chamber this morning: ‘As each day passes it is clearer and clearer that we have a Prime Minister who has never seen a tax she did not like and never had a tax she would not hike.’ I plead with the government on behalf of the diverse electorate of Bennelong and all those struggling to make ends meet to stop this stupidity, to ease the pain, to let us get up off the rack and to abandon this new tax.

See this speech in context