Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The shadow minister for finance, deregulation and debt reduction and member for Goldstein asked in this place: 'If the carbon tax were levied only in Victoria, is it not conceivable that business would look at shifting to a neighbouring state?' One of the major problems with this tax is that it does not reward growth. It does not provide a stimulus to get bigger, better and more profitable, make more stuff and employ more people, because under this tax, if you get bigger in manufacturing or in industry, you will use more energy and the tax will grow. You are much better off shifting the process offshore and escaping the tax. That is where we are with this tax.

I want to keep this as local as I possibly can by referring to my city of Townsville. Take Queensland Nickel. It employs 900 people directly and 1,200 indirectly. Just two short years ago it almost closed. It was poorly run under BHP's business model and was not doing what it should have been doing: processing and refining ore into nickel. Had it closed, it was estimated to have a $4.5 billion negative impact on the economy of Townsville. Clive Palmer gave the plant over to the management and staff and they concentrated on what they did best. They turned it around and made a profit. The current price for nickel is hovering around the low- to mid-$8 dollar mark, which is lineball commercially. They have used the heat in their plant to generate electricity and have made great strides in making this plant the best of its kind in the world.

Processing nickel is highly energy intensive. Queensland Nickel's major competitors are in Brazil and Cuba. In fact, they are the only two other places in the world that use the Caron refining method. It is said that the areas around the Cuban refineries are toxic. You neither fish nor swim anywhere near them. The men and women from Queensland Nickel that I know say you can almost walk on the smoke billowing out of the furnaces in Brazil. Those two countries will not be paying a carbon tax.

We have seen six different classifications for paper production in this tax but only one for nickel. Queensland Nickel is exposed to around $20 million from the start of this tax, and it will only become more and more expensive year after year. The ore is sourced on international markets. Ore is sold on international commodity markets. There is nowhere for Queensland Nickel to pass this cost on. It will have to absorb it internally. What happens when it becomes too much? Will the world be a better place? No. The ore will still be refined. In fact, it will produce a worse result for the world if Brazil and Cuba get more ore and more market share.

I will share something in relation to Townsville City Council. Townsville City Council have conducted research on the figures provided by the government. They have found that they will be short between $3 million and $5 million per year from year one, and that is after the government's taxpayer funded compensation. That will mean a rate rise for the property owners of Townsville of between two per cent and three per cent in year one so that they can have their rubbish collected and have their street and traffic lights on. There will be no benefit to the ratepayers of Townsville. That would just be the start. That will be repeated across the country in every city and town where electricity is used and garbage is collected.

I will talk about the residents of Palm Island and Magnetic Island. The people of Palm Island are some of the most disadvantaged and socially dislocated people on earth, let alone Australia. The only way to Townsville is by ferry. The ferry runs on diesel. There is no compensation for diesel used on public transport, so the residents of Palm Island and Magnetic Island, who have no alternative method of transport, will have to wear the cost, and to what end? What will they get for their money? What extra services and facilities will they receive? None, nada, nothing.

I will talk about the Xstrata copper refinery in Townsville. They have 90 direct employees and there are 260 indirect jobs. Xstrata will close their refinery citing processing costs. They will still mine the ore and it will still be converted into concentrate at Mount Isa. That will be done in Australia where it is mined, but the concentrate will be refined overseas. That is $300 million worth of export dollars lost to this country, and to what end? What will the net result to world pollution be? Certainly neither Xstrata nor the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency have addressed this issue publicly. What will the tradesmen and tradeswomen do there? As the member for Melbourne suggests, do the boilermakers and electricians get a job on the Great Barrier Reef in tourism or do they just have to shift away from Townsville and chase the work? They will have to take their children out of the schools and take their wives and husbands in other jobs out of the town.

I will talk about the CopperString project, with over 5,000 jobs over the next 30 years. This visionary project was to bring Mount Isa onto the national grid, open the north-west minerals province and allow the greatest collection of renewable energy projects access to the grid. Both sides of this House support this project, but only one side could do the negotiation with the major players, which includes Xstrata Mount Isa Mines, and that was the Labor government. Xstrata has signed a commercial deal with AGL to build a new gas fired power station at Mount Isa, and that brings into question both the negotiation skills of the government and their commitment to renewable energy. One of the reasons for this decision is the statement by Xstrata that they would save one million tonnes of carbon per year. That is one million tonnes of carbon from the AC line linking them to Townsville and the national grid. That link is the key ingredient in the CopperString vision. That link provides access for all renewable energy projects to feed into that grid. That this government can cause the largest collection of renewable energy projects to stall, in part due to the carbon tax, is surely the supreme irony.

How is it that they can nut out a deal with the big miners on the MRRT in the blink of an eye and yet fail to convince them of the benefits of this most worthy project? How is it that the government talk about their commitment to renewable energy and yet, with the stroke of Xstrata's pen, the national Treasurer is unable to speak about it at all? This project would have seen real economic growth across every sector in the north of Australia for the next 40 years. It would have seen employment not only for skilled workers but also for local workers in western communities and for our first Australians as they battle to stay on their lands and provide for their families. Instead, we see a weak and vacillating government talking the talk but unable to get out of their chairs to walk the walk.

Projects such as Solar Dawn, the Kennedy Wind Farm with over 800 turbines, along with other solar, ethanol and geothermal investment must now be under severe doubt. People in my electorate, like Robin Richardson from Alliance Airlines and Peter Collings from West Wing Aviation, who provide the service of fly in, fly out to the mining sector and have plans for expansion, now look at their businesses and wonder where they go next. Do they go to Papua New Guinea, because they do not have a carbon tax?

This carbon tax is not reform; this is penalty. This carbon tax is not a tax on the big polluters; it is a tax on mums and dads and children. This carbon tax does not offer adequate compensation; it will only bring with it higher prices and losses of opportunities. This tax will cascade and compound until the final purchase is made by the person least able to ward off its hurt. This carbon tax will hurt my city, my region, my state and my country. There is a better way.

The real action program proposed by the federal opposition—by Tony Abbott, by Greg Hunt, by Warren Entsch, by Warren Truss and by everyone on this side of the House—is capped and affordable and it taxes the actual pollution being done. It works with business, not against business. We have a Prime Minister who says that she is the education Prime Minister and yet she believes in the stick and not the carrot. She believes that students and people work better with penalty than they do with encouragement. She believes in treating business exactly the same way.

We have a Labor government that said before the election that they did not believe in this, and yet afterwards they accuse us on this side of being negative. I watched the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency at the weekend on Insiders. He spoke in an interview with Barrie Cassidy for nearly 12 minutes and in that time he had seven chops at the Leader of the Opposition. You wonder why we are negative. You guys are worse than we are. You guys are the negative ones because you do not have a positive agenda. (Time expired)

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