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

One thing is for certain in this debate this afternoon: should a Labor government ever come back into office in this country, they will bring back the carbon tax and they will drive up the price of electricity. We heard earlier today from members of the Labor Party a completely false debate involving accusations about increasing the GST. It is such hypocrisy to come in here and talk about increasing the cost of living for average Australians when they have a plan to reintroduce the carbon tax. They may call it another name but it will push up the price of everything.

An important point needs to be made: with the GST at its current rate of 10 per cent, that tax that people pay goes to government revenue to finance government services. What happens with a carbon tax? Yes, at the lower rates the money goes into government coffers. But as the rates continue to kick up and up—that is how a carbon tax works; they continually increase it and ratchet it up each year—what happens? All of a sudden you end up collecting no tax because you force inefficient economic activity. You force out coal fired and gas fired electricity production and you turn that into high-cost wind and solar. Revenue from the carbon tax will not come in, so there will be nothing to help offset the costs. But the pain will be there.

I had a meeting recently with a group of scientists down at Lucas Heights in my electorate. I am proud to say that I am the only member of this parliament who has a nuclear reactor in his electorate. One of the scientists down there said to me, 'It's not about the theory; it's about the evidence.' I agree with him. We as members of parliament have a duty in this place to be sceptical. That is our duty. If we are not sceptics, we are sheep. I am proud to call myself a sceptic on this issue. I am sceptical about the IPCC's predictions. I would like to compare those with real-world measurements.

There are two ways we can measure temperature. We can measure it by satellites. We can also measure it using ground thermometers. I think, if you look at the evidence, you will see that the satellites are the most accurate. What do those satellites tell us? They tell us that for the last 18 years and nine months there has been no further global warming.

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