Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to implore the Prime Minister, two days out from the carbon tax, to think again—to think of the impact that this is going to have on the Australian community, on the cost of living; what it is going to do to our international competitiveness; and what it is going to do to her own credibility. She has two days to be honest with the Australian people, to say, 'I misled you before the election. I will now do the right and honourable thing. I will go to the people over this insidious tax, rather than deceiving you before the election and then introducing it after.'

There is no doubt that this tax will hurt our manufacturing sector. We have already seen that Alcoa has had to be paid $40 million to compensate for the costs they will incur. That is at Point Henry alone. We have seen nothing about what will happen to the smelter at Portland, in my electorate, because, as we know and we have seen from the government's modelling, the carbon tax is all about making it harder for companies to manufacture and process aluminium in this country.

But it is also about what this tax is going to do to the agricultural sector, which is alarming. A report out in the last few days shows that the carbon tax in its first year will put $3.2 billion of extra costs on our agricultural communities. This is backed by other research. But the latest research is that there will be $3.2 billion of extra costs on our agricultural sector in the first year alone. The alarm bells should be ringing in the Prime Minister's office. She should be realising that she has made an enormous mistake that this country will take years to recover from.

Let me give an example of one of those costs. Let us look at our dairy sector. My electorate of Wannon produces more milk than any other electorate in Australia. It does so because we have first-class dairy farmers and we have first-class processors. They will be hit by the carbon tax. Each farm will be hit with extra costs of between $5,000 and $7,000. That is for the average dairy farm. For the larger ones, we are looking at $10,000 to $15,000. That is the straight-up hit. I have also been speaking to a small business man in my electorate who goes and repairs the dairy vats at a lot of the dairies. Because the carbon tax will also hit refrigerants, it is now becoming apparent that there will be additional costs, besides the immediate ones from the carbon tax, which are going to accrue. The cost of repairing a dairy vat before the carbon tax came in, according to Ron Cashmore, was roughly $3,200. As a result of the carbon tax, that is going to lift to roughly $13,200. So, once a year, which is about the regularity of when a dairy farmer has a vat fixed, they will face an additional cost of $10,000 as a result of the Prime Minister's carbon tax. It gets worse because, occasionally, these vats need repairing two or three times in a month if something goes wrong. You are not looking at a cost of $10,000 per annum on top of the $5,000 to $6,000 which will be impacted immediately; you are looking at dairy farmers potentially facing additional costs of $20,000 to $30,000 per year.

The average dairy farmer earns an income of roughly $65,000. This carbon tax must be stopped. It is why, when we get into government, the first thing that the Abbott-led coalition government will do is repeal it. It is insidious. It will go into every aspect of our lives. It will go into every aspect of our businesses' competitiveness. It must be stopped. We will fight it and we will stop it. (Time expired)