Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing and Sovereign Capability) Share this | Hansard source

If you wanted to design a policy for deliberately sabotaging the Australian economy, bankrupting our farmers and paralysing our mining industry, you would look no further than this motion. We're currently standing in the middle of a national fuel emergency, yet here we are debating a motion that treats our most productive industries as if they are a problem to be phased out. What we're seeing here today is the height of illogical nonsense, a motion that places ideology above the wellbeing and prosperity of our nation.

The member's argument rests on a false premise that the fuel tax credit is a subsidy. Let me be crystal clear—it is not. It is a mechanism to ensure that businesses are not taxed for the road infrastructure they simply don't use. Isn't that fair enough? Why would you ask people who are not using the roads to pay for a tax on the roads? That is just nonsensical—a total false premise. The heavy machinery, the harvesters, the tractors and 400-tonne mine haul-out trucks that power our economy do not drive on our highways. To tax their fuel is like having a double tax on production, a move that would drive up the cost of every single thing that is grown, mined or made in this country.

Let us talk about the total fiscal lunacy of this motion. We're talking about the fuel tax credit here, an expense of $11 billion. The FTC is a vital lubricant for a $1.2 trillion industrial engine. To suggest we save $11 billion by handicapping the sectors that return over $60 billion in mining royalties alone is dangerously naive. Is anybody ever going to trip over a dollar to pick up a cent? Furthermore, the environmental logic behind this motion is nothing short of laughable. This motion suggests we will phase out these credits to meet net zero targets. Net zero is killing Australia. All we are doing is exporting our emissions along with our jobs and prosperity.

Right now, Australia is forced to have diesel refined overseas because the Albanese Labor government has made domestic production almost impossible. But here's the kicker: when we import fuel, we are adding to global emissions through massive shipping distances and processing in countries with far lower environmental standards than our own. This House is being asked to adopt a not-in-my-backyard attitude, pretending that as long as the smoke isn't coming out of an Australian chimney it doesn't count. It is hypocritical, nonsensical and a betrayal of the national interest.

If this Labor government really cared about the environment and our sovereign capability, we would be taking ownership of our own resources. We would be extracting, refining and using our own fuels. We should be encouraging our resource industry, not penalising it. In this motion, the member for Bradfield suggests a $50 million cap to protect small business, but this is a hollow gesture. In my electorate of Dawson, the large-scale mines of the neighbouring Bowen Basin are the engine room of our local economy. They provide jobs that support local grocery stores, our mechanics and our schools. When you penalise the big end of town in the resources sector, you're effectively cutting the throat of every small business that services them.

We're also told that this will force electrification. This may shock the teals, but you can't run a D11 dozer or a cane harvester on a battery. The nation's heavy industry runs on molecules not on electrons. To force a phase-out of fuel credits before there is a viable, affordable and proven technological alternative—that's not a transition; that is a shutdown. The net zero fantasy is a tax on the prosperity of every Australian. We need a system that reduces energy costs not one that bankrupts the nation to satisfy a city-centric agenda. We either are to be a sovereign power or an economic disaster. This motion, if supported, will be an economic disaster.

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