Ben Small (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Slowly, slowly, and then suddenly! Within the coalition, the speaker's list on this bill started as something of a renegade action to begin a long and necessary debate on the need to dump Labor's net zero agenda, especially the taxes, penalties and big government schemes that now see taxpayers forced to stump up for the generation, storage, transmission, retail and even the consumption of power, directly supporting the businesses in Australia who are no longer viable in this country because energy prices are through the roof. So much for a future made in Australia. Without taking money off nurses and tradies, the Mount Isa refinery—closed; the Port Pirie smelter—closed; Whyalla—closed; Alcoa Kwinana refinery—closed; Tomago—closing. Instead, in just a few months, we have landed on a coalition position to put Australians first. I am not sure when we as a country decided that Canberra always knows best, with unelected bureaucrats who live far, far away from communities like mine somehow best placed to decide what ordinary Australians do in their homes, businesses and communities. It's a lens through which I've come to look at most policies of government. I am a 'live and let live' sort of guy, after all, and I honestly believe that an important part of the Australian psyche still holds that we just don't want to be told what to do all of the time.

When we come to the issue of net zero, it seems that this government decided that it knows better than Australians or, more egregiously, perhaps, that it simply doesn't trust them to do the right thing in their own circumstances. Rather than leaving it to each Australian to decide whether an electric vehicle is suited to their needs, whether for commuting, recreation with a caravan or boat, or even to suit their work from the construction site to the back paddock, this government decided to impose taxes on folks who choose an internal combustion engine vehicle, pushing up the cost, as just one example, of a new Ford Ranger by some $14,000 by 2029.

I think the truly criminal part of the government deciding they know more about what sort of car you should drive is the fact that they have cooked up a scheme of subsidies that makes a Tesla cheaper for a surgeon than for a nurse. I thought Labor was supposed to represent the workers, but they are, instead, running a scheme that gives high-income earners a bigger tax break to buy an EV, and the poor old taxpayers get to foot the bill. So we'll take tax money off a nurse to make a surgeon's novated lease for his Tesla cheaper. Astonishingly, the Parliamentary Budget Office expects this rort to cost some $23 billion over a decade and, yet, Labor stand by it. Why can't we end all subsidies, taxes, penalties and every other way that Canberra is trying to direct how Aussies drive and live their lives and just leave it to them?

Internationally, the evidence is clear. Labor's net zero zealotry is doomed to fail Australians, with no country in the world having lower power prices once wind and solar account for more than 20 per cent of generation in the grid. I've been asked by local media about CSIRO's GenCost report and other government modelling that somehow, miraculously, always shows power prices coming down with more renewables. The reality is that none of this modelling has ever been right in terms of cost at the meter, the only place that it counts for Aussie businesses and households. On page 5 of the GenCost report it literally says that it is:

… focussed on the investor's perspective and not the long-term value to the consumer.

If that doesn't bell the cat I don't know what would.

Nobody wants to talk about the Labor Party's RepuTex modelling of $275 power price cuts for Australians by 2025, least of all the minister responsible for the mess, who's now cutting back his hours to spend more time junketing with the COP set. But the Prime Minister of Australia said, 'I don't think; I know that prices will come down.' Here's something else the Prime Minister said in Longford on 12 April 2022:

From time to time, if ever I make a mistake, I will own it and I will accept responsibility.

Well, Prime Minister, why won't you own this? Why won't you take responsibility, as you promised the Australian people you would? If you did, you'd do the right thing by Australians and dump your net zero agenda that has pushed power prices up while seeing emissions flatline and Aussie jobs exported overseas.

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