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

The government created two funds. It created a $2 billion Contract for Closure fund to close brown coal power stations and it created a $5½ billion Energy Security Fund to bail out brown coal power stations. It is not surprising that the smaller fund has failed. It is not surprising that the carbon tax is in chaos. It takes a certain type of genius to create one fund to close brown coal power stations and one fund to bail them out. I would ask the question: is there any other similar example in the western world in the last 20 years of two multibillion-dollar funds designed to do precisely the opposite things? I stand to be corrected but I am not aware of any other pairing of one fund to close power stations and one fund to keep them open. It is a unique policy achievement.

The member for Casey highlighted to me that the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency raised the issue of sovereign risk. The entire carbon tax and the entire mining tax are about sovereign risk. They are about changing the ground rules in a way that creates uncertainty, that creates higher costs on Australian production, because this is an electricity ta The carbon tax is an electricity tax. Its theory is to close down the power stations; its reality is that, because they are not subject to import competition, the power stations are simply passing on the power price. So mums and dads right now are paying higher power prices.

In New South Wales, 50 per cent of the electricity price rise is coming from the carbon tax. In Victoria, two-thirds of the electricity price rise is coming from the carbon tax. In Western Australia, not 70 per cent but 72 per cent of the price rises are coming from the carbon tax. In the ACT, between 75 and 80 per cent of the price rise is coming from the carbon tax. In western Sydney, 80 per cent of the price rise in electricity is coming from the carbon tax. In Queensland, where Campbell Newman has frozen the bulk of retail tariffs, between 80 and 100 per cent of electricity price rises for the coming year are as a consequence of the carbon tax. So the theory behind these two funds is based on a simple flaw: that the carbon tax would have an impact on the generators. In reality they are passing through the electricity prices, as they were always intended to do.

I just want to make one more comment. Our view is that this motion fails. I respect the views of the member for Melbourne, but this motion fails because the carbon tax, the $2 billion to close brown coal power stations and the $5½ billion to keep them open should all be ditched. Dealing with one part of the three elements of the equation is fundamentally flawed.

But what I do want to acknowledge is the amount of money being given in cash to the largest brown coal generators in Australia. Going from the government's own announcement, there has been: $14.9 million to Alcoa's Anglesea Power Station; $59 million in cash to the Augusta power stations; $8 million in cash to the Collinsville Power Station; $27 million in cash to Green Energy Bricks, which was of course before the second round of bailouts two days before the carbon tax began; $265 million to Hazelwood Power Station in cash; $240 million in cash to Loy Yang A power station; $59 million in cash to Loy Yang B power station through International Power Australia and $57 million in cash through Gippsland Power; $8 million in cash to Redbank Power Station; and $257 million in cash to Yallourn W power station.

So the biggest polluters, according to the government, are getting the biggest cash handouts in Australian history. It is no wonder the Australian people think that this carbon tax is a dud, because the biggest polluters are being given literally $5½ billion in cash and permits and the Australian people are picking up the bill in terms of higher electricity, gas and grocery costs.

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