House debates
Wednesday, 14 September 2011
Bills
Clean Energy Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Income Tax Rates Amendments) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Household Assistance Amendments) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Tax Laws Amendments) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Fuel Tax Legislation Amendment) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Customs Tariff Amendment) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Excise Tariff Legislation Amendment) Bill 2011, Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas (Import Levy) Amendment Bill 2011, Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas (Manufacture Levy) Amendment Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Unit Shortfall Charge — General) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Unit Issue Charge — Auctions) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Unit Issue Charge — Fixed Charge) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (International Unit Surrender Charge) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Charges — Customs) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Charges — Excise) Bill 2011, Clean Energy Regulator Bill 2011, Climate Change Authority Bill 2011, Steel Transformation Plan Bill 2011; Second Reading
6:52 pm
Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Hansard source
I am delighted to follow my colleague the shadow minister for small business who made such a strong and powerful contribution to this debate. It is disappointing that the Labor Party seems to have given up trying to defend its package of clean energy bills. Either the powers that be thought that their members were not up to the debate or they simply ran out of people who had something to say. But there is plenty to say about these bills. There is plenty to say about the carbon tax.
I almost felt sorry for the Prime Minister today. She is so dejected because she knows she is for the chop. But I thought, 'No, the pity that I have must be for the Australian people because they are the ones who are to be punished by this legislation.' And punishment is what those opposite are about. The whole concept of compensation is that first you injure somebody and then you compensate them. This government says on its modelling—its wonderful modelling, which has still not been released and not been properly done on the $23 a tonne it is going to impose—it is going to injure the average family $9.90 a week. That is the extent of the damage it says the average family will suffer. So it is going to compensate for that damage $10.10 a week. Anybody who thinks that Treasury can accurately model down to the last 20c truly believes there are fairies at the bottom of the garden. Every year Treasury gets it wrong with the budget. The figures are always wrong. Six months later we bring in supplementary estimates to correct the errors that were committed in the budget. To believe that Treasury could say, 'We are going to injure you $9.90 and compensate you $10.10,' and get that right, as I said, is to believe there are fairies at the bottom of the garden.
The injury that is going to be done to the country is because of the way in which Labor always goes about governing. When Paul Keating was defeated he left a debt behind of $96 billion. It took us 10 years to pay it off, but pay it off we did. We left the country in really good shape. We left a surplus of $20 billion. We had set up various trust funds. We had set up the Future Fund. Now I hear this government is even going to raid the Future Fund. Nothing is sacrosanct.
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