Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was very interested to hear the comments of the member for Reid tonight. My advice to him would be not to sell his coat. Last month here in Canberra was the coldest May in 50 years. Across the Tasman, in Christchurch, only two weeks ago they had their coldest day ever recorded—going back to 1860.

However, that is not what I rose to speak about tonight. The question I wanted to pose to the House is: if you deliberately wanted to undermine our nation's prosperity and if you deliberately wanted to inflict harm upon the Australian nation, what would you do? The very first thing you would do is attack our national competitive advantage—our low-cost electricity—and that is what this government plans to do with its carbon tax. By imposing the world's largest carbon tax upon the Australian nation, this government is undermining the very foundations of our prosperity. We have the absolute absurdity that, under Labor's carbon tax, Australian coal can be shipped to any one of the massive new coal-fired power plants that China is building to drive prosperity in China. But, if we use that same piece of coal here in an Australian power station, it would be subject to Labor's carbon tax. This policy will simply place Australian businesses at a competitive disadvantage and drive jobs offshore for absolutely zero environmental gain.

The second thing you would do, if you wanted to undermine our national prosperity and if you wanted to deliberately inflict harm upon the Australian nation, is peddle the Hollywood fantasy that we can drive our economy with wind turbines and solar panels. These sources of power will only ever be tokenistic and their use cannot change the temperature of the globe.

The third thing you would do, if you wanted to undermine our national prosperity, is make an all-out assault upon small business—and that is exactly what this tax does. It is a vicious and destructive tax that will be imposed upon hundreds of thousands of the small businesses which provide most of the jobs for people in Australia.

The fourth thing you would do, if you wanted to damage our nation and undermine our national prosperity, is seek to destroy the dream of home ownership for the average Australian citizen—and that is exactly what this government plans to do. The level of home ownership in Australia rose sharply after 1947, when only 53 per cent of Australian families owned their own home. The ownership rate for families continued to rise steadily during the Howard years. But, as the recent census has revealed, there has been a shocking reversal of the trend in home ownership. There has been a decline in home ownership under this Labor government which is believed to be the sharpest on record outside a recession. Labor are set to make this situation worse, with the Housing Industry Association estimating that the carbon tax will add $5,000 to $6,000 to the cost of the average home. Simply put, this carbon tax will make it harder for the average Australian to own their own home.

The fifth thing you would do, if you sought to damage our nation and undermine our national prosperity, is peddle fear and doom to our children and make them pessimistic about the future—and that, as we have heard in tonight's speeches, is exactly what this government is doing. They have used propaganda to indoctrinate our children about an impending climate apocalypse in which all the polar bears will die and millions of people will drown as a result of rising seas levels—and in which those left alive are going to experience endless drought and violent storms. This is exactly what this government is doing through the scaremongering of its climate change commissioner.

Finally, if you wanted to damage Australia, you would undermine trust in our political system. Again, that is exactly what this Labor government has done through the breaking of the promise made by the Prime Minister, in the dying days before the last election, that there would be no carbon tax under a government she led.

In short, if you wanted to damage the Australian nation and undermine our national prosperity, you would be supporting the policies of this Labor government and you would be here in this chamber supporting this carbon tax. So it is no surprise that, on the anniversary of the coup d'etat inspired by Labor's faceless men which deposed the member for Griffith, we see most members of the government, rather than having celebrations and merriment, walking around the House as though they were on their way to a wake. (Time expired)

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