Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise again to speak on this issue in the consideration in detail. I return to the point that I was making earlier regarding the government's very rubbery figures: the fact that it forgot $4.3 billion and then said, 'Oops! Don't worry about it; it's simply a rounding error'. What that demonstrates to all of us in this chamber is that the government got it wrong again on its figures and then, of course, found an excuse to try to make it look as though it was all meant to be. But we know that it was not meant to be. The government's default position is to tax and spend, and the carbon tax that the government has brought forward is the biggest tax and spend redistribution of wealth that we will see in our lifetimes.

But this is not where the government's rubbery figures end. The government also forgot to factor in the $10 billion in the slush fund for the leader of the Greens, to fund his pet causes and projects. Again, we were led to believe that this perhaps was not real money. We know that the Treasurer has had problems in the past with real money—he has problems with this concept—because in opposition he referred to the fact that a $600 per child payment was not 'real money'. I have news for the Treasurer: the money is real, and it comes from ordinary Australians.

We know that the cost of the carbon tax will be around $1.5 billion between now and 2020. It is going to cost up to a trillion dollars over the coming decades. This is despite the fact that the Prime Minister in her own speech said that the price impact of the government's plan will be modest. A trillion dollars: I would hardly call that modest.

Now we come to the modelling. Only last sitting period, the Treasurer was forced to release new modelling to factor in those things that had not been factored in. Who can forget that the government modelling in the compensation arrangements they put forward was based on $20 a tonne when in fact they were bringing in a carbon tax with a starting price of $23 a tonne? In his most current press release on the modelling, the Treasurer acknowledged that the updated modelling covers the main impacts on the Australian economy of the Clean Energy Future package. However, including all elements of the plan was not feasible. So he is acknowledging in his own words that they cannot really properly fully model the impact. They either do not know or do not want us to know what the impact is going to be.

We keep being reminded by the government that this is a wonderfully vital economic reform, yet by their own admission they cannot say what the impact is going to be and, more to the point, they cannot tell us who the 500 big polluters are. We know that the supposed 500 big polluters dipped down to around 400 and then went back up to 500. And yet, when specifically asked to name the supposedly hundreds of big polluters who are going to have to pay this carbon tax, the government cannot detail for us who they are.

It is fair to say that if they cannot answer these fairly basic questions and if they cannot get basic programs like a pink batts program, or a solar homes program of only $850 million or a $350 million green program right, how on earth are they going to get the most complex change to the Australian economy right? We know that there is one thing they are consistent on, and that is budget blowouts. We know that they are very good at wasting taxpayer money, but we will all be paying for that.

I would also like to talk about another thing that the government says is close to its heart and is very important, and that is jobs. The government is very good at talking about jobs and yet not very good at defending them. Let us analyse some of the numbers. Verso Economics recently found that, for every supposed green job created, 3.7 jobs were lost in other areas of the economy. Spain's Universidad Rey Juan Carlos found that, for every green job, 2.2 jobs were lost. Study after study demonstrates what we know to be correct, which is that with a carbon tax jobs will go, jobs will be lost. This government says that it is a matter of pride that it defends jobs, yet when the Prime Minister was asked to guarantee that not one job would be lost she would not give that guarantee. Why would she not give that guarantee? She would not give that guarantee because she knows the truth. The truth is the carbon tax will lead to a destruction of jobs.

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