Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Carbon farming does nothing for them. Understand the issue—they are a manufacturer. Carbon farming does nothing for them. You do not understand your issue. What do they get for producing carbon-reduction equipment? They get a carbon tax. How is that fair? The carbon tax will add to the cost of living, and understand that the cost of living is increasing. We see it with insurance premiums, with people's electricity bills and with the cost of child care—another policy where once again this government's intentions might have been okay but they did not think through what the ultimate result of their policy would be.

I welcome the opportunity today to talk on these two appropriation bills and to raise the three key points that I have raised. The first was about the issue of trust and, sadly—I know the members sitting opposite saw it—that Four Corners show once and for all detailed that we have a Prime Minister and therefore a government which cannot be trusted. The second point I have highlighted is that we continue to see waste upon waste upon waste. Labor's $700 set-top box is just another example of this, especially when you realise that for $19 at the local discount store you can get a set-top box. The third issue is what the carbon tax is going to do to manufacturing—both small and large—in this country and, also, to the cost of living, to what it is going to do to increase people's electricity bills and to what it is going to do to a range of issues in driving up overall costs. It is an insidious tax and the government should just admit that it was an idea that might have been well intended but they never thought it through. (Time expired)

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