Barry Haase (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, I wish to thank the member for Fremantle for so eloquently promoting my patch and that amazing art that is on the Burrup Peninsula.

I rise this evening to speak on a matter that will change the face of Australia forever, a matter that this Labor government has unashamedly lied about. It is a matter on which the leader of this country has, in a desperate attempt to retain her position as Prime Minister, cajoled, dare I say it, somewhat normally rational, thinking members of the Labor Party to rally behind her and show their supposed support. This matter is a carbon tax, a tax the people of Australia do not want.

This government, led by a Prime Minister hanging on for grim death, is forcing upon our nation a carbon tax that we not only do not want; it is a carbon tax that will have no effect on the amount of carbon produced in the global economy. It will merely shift Australian production offshore. This government cares no more for a reduction in carbon tax than I care about the slow, agonising death the Labor Party is enduring under the current leadership.

This revenue-raising scheme is based on a lie. We all know the famous words of the Prime Minister: 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' The people of Australia are scared. They are vulnerable. They are afraid of this government's obsession with the carbon tax and they are terrified of the ramifications this tax will have on their jobs. They have every right to be terrified.

Since January more than 1,800 job are known to have been lost—600 jobs at Alcoa's Point Henry refinery and 500 jobs with builders Kell and Rigby are at risk. These statistics, together with the announcement that the ANZ Bank will be slashing its workforce by 1,000, do not give anyone a sense security.

Mr Speaker, allow me to give you a brief rundown on why the people of Australia have no faith in this government. During the last laborious four years of Labor at the helm, 19 new or increased taxes have been introduced. After delivering the four biggest budget deficits in history, government borrowing is at $100 million a day. The cost of living has skyrocketed and interest rates are rising. Unemployment has increased to 5.2 per cent as at December 2011, and this is the first year in 20 years that there has been no net gain in employment. I fear that it will not be the last. In fact, it may just be the inaugural year of no net gain in employment until Australia is rid of this despicable government.

Australians are already feeling the associated costs of the carbon tax and it has not yet been introduced. Taxpayers have paid more than $1 million to the consultancy firm Hall and Partners/Open Mind for campaign development and feedback. This is on top of last year's $32 million advertising campaign. I am presuming the company will be providing feedback on the budgeted further $10 million campaign ahead of the carbon tax's introduction on 1 July.

This arrogant government is squandering taxpayers' money to provide them with an assessment of its taxpayer funded campaign to sell us a new tax we don't want. It beggars belief. We now know that more than $17 million has already been spent on setting up the agency that will implement the carbon tax, and $9.4 million of that has been spent on operating costs and $8.4 million in capital outlays. This offensive waste of taxpayers' money includes $500,000 for board and CEO recruitment, $535,000 on the CEO's salary package, $200,000 on agency branding, the engagement of 207 staff to date and the engagement of 35 consultants or external contractors. I find it intriguing, to say the least, that $200,000 is to be spent on the branding of an agency which has no competition. I find appalling the fact that the contract was originally set at $41,000-odd and in less than two months has blown out fivefold. I know that the time we waste in parliament with ridiculous debates such as that on same sex marriage is designed to take the heat off the government for its lack of fiscal management. We are all alarmed at the complacency this government displays in every matter other than the carbon tax. The people of Australia have every right to be concerned at the rate of knots at which this country is sailing into ruin. They have every right to fear for their jobs. Mark my words, we will all rue the day the carbon tax was introduced.