Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Go your hardest. What we have been told with reference to this is that there will be a return on investment. My point here in the House is that that will be limited. The government's own bill already envisages a loss to this taxpayer through this investment due to operating costs and write-downs—or, what we would call, failed projects—as set out in the fiscal impacts. With reference to return on investment, I think they are looking to write off forecasted amounts of up to $600 million. In the electorate of Wright, where we were devastated with the recent floods, I could do a lot with $600 million. That amount would take a lot of the pressure off the Toowoomba Range crossing. It would go a long way towards rebuilding the communities of Lockyer Valley, Murphy's Creek, Grantham and surrounding communities. It would help in Mt Sylvia, where the telecommunications network was destroyed, just to get back to where we were. So $600 million seems a big gamble, a big punt.

It would seem that spending $10 billion on renewable energy would get you something. What is proposed here is that the government will spend $10 billion and that that will generate some form of new renewable energy. The problem, however, is that, before this bill, there was a 20 per cent renewable energy target and now, after the $10 billion included in this bill is spent, there will still only be a 20 per cent renewable energy target. We believe that, if we had worked cooperatively and co-invested with the market, with those who were already at commercial stage, we could have met our objectives far more successfully than through pursuing high-risk, low-return programs.

This bill is economically irresponsible and unlikely to achieve its stated aims. I hope for the government's sake that it does reach its aims—I genuinely do. It is an enormous amount of money. But I suggest, coming from the commercial background that I do, that not many of the ducks are lining up on this project. I say that with all sincerity. Not only is the carbon tax a bad piece of policy; it is the product of an unprecedented deceit and it is an impost on the Australian people. This is money that comes from the teachers, carpenters, farmers and nurses from my electorate of Wright—people who work each and every day to pay their taxes. Their money will be wasted on this.

I want to bring to the attention of the House comments from Twiggy Forrest in his recent address at the National Press Club. He likened the government's handling of the carbon tax to a couple of blokes buying a Melbourne Cup racehorse that had the potential to make them millions and millions of dollars and then, rather than racing the horse for the second time to get their dividend, celebrating after the first race by eating the horse. Those words came from Twiggy. Yes, he has a vested interest in the mining resources sector, but it was an interesting analogy for the government's handling of funds.

The government are going to talk about how successful they are and how successful this tax is going to be. But let me remind you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that it was the coalition that created, developed and implemented the mandatory renewable energy target—successfully; it was the coalition which created, developed and implemented the then equivalent of the solar PV rebate—successfully; and it was the coalition which created, developed and implemented the solar hot water rebate—successfully. We have proven ourselves when it comes to handling the commercial and financial decisions of government. The majority of us on this side come from business backgrounds. We come from places where balance sheets are a basic factor in making decisions on a daily basis. When we make a wrong decision, it hurts us in the hip pocket. So we are a lot more diligent when it comes to making decisions on behalf of the nation and spending other people's money. I would suggest that the other side of politics, the Labor government, do not have the same skill set.

In closing, I draw on the words of the previous leader of the Liberal Party, who said one of the problems with the Australian Labor Party is that they have a very shallow gene pool.

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