Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

In addressing the budget, let me begin today with what is tragic news for families in the Hunter region, who had a sense of the future, a sense of opportunity and a sense that they could make through their work a pathway for their lives and their families with security. Yet we see that the heart of this budget is a $36 billion carbon tax. What was that carbon tax intended, designed and constructed to do? It was to destroy jobs and production in areas which are deemed to be high emission. Most particularly, the government's own Treasury modelling predicts that as a consequence of the carbon tax the aluminium sector will be 60 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been. The variable there is the carbon tax. This is not the opposition confecting; this is not the opposition asserting; this is a direct finding within Treasury's own modelling based on a comparison between what would be the case without the carbon tax and what will be the case with the carbon tax. This day, Norsk Hydro—otherwise known as Pacific Hydro—made it absolutely clear that the Kurri Kurri plant in the Hunter would be wound down, at a cost of 344 jobs, and that one of the critical long-term factors was the carbon tax.

In question time today, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Mr Combet, denied that this was a factor in the company's decision—they denied that the carbon tax was a factor in the loss of 344 jobs today and 150 jobs earlier this year. I read directly, clearly and in an unedited form from Norsk Hydro's press release of today:

Following a thorough review, it is clear that the plant will not be profitable in the short term with current market prices, while long-term viability will be negatively affected by a number of factors including increasing energy costs and the carbon tax.

Let us unpick that.

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