Colin Boyce (Flynn, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The safeguard mechanism represents one of the world's most punitive carbon taxes, and it will only see prices soar even further for struggling families. This is a hard cap on economic growth, a hard cap on new industries and a hard cap on jobs. It is de-industrialisation, not decarbonisation, which experts have warned the government about. This will do irreparable damage to the energy market and will penalise consumers.

This does nothing to eliminate global emissions. All the government has succeeded in doing is putting a hard cap on future economic growth, because if industries cannot develop in Australia they will look to move overseas. As the carbon tax begins to take its toll, impacted businesses will be forced to pass on their costs to consumers. This will add fuel to the flames of Labor's cost-of-living crisis. This will see the cost of everything, from fuel to food, skyrocket when families can least afford it.

Of the 215 largest industrial facilities affected by the safeguard mechanism, 28 are operating in the electorate of Capricornia and 18 in the electorate of Flynn. So approximately 30 per cent of all targeted industries are in Central Queensland This includes the Yarwun refinery of Queensland Alumina Limited in Gladstone. In 2021, Rio Tinto owned Yarwun refinery in Gladstone and reported that they employed 700 people, the majority of whom lived in the local region. About 500 contractors were employed for annual shutdowns and other activities. Yarwun refinery's annual production exceeds three million tonnes of alumina. In 2020, Queensland Alumina Limited paid $983 million in contributions to the economy, including salaries, partnerships, in-kind support, taxes and total national supplies spend.

QAL sends alumina to locations such as Tasmania, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, China, New Zealand and Russia, as well as to Queensland manufacturing businesses. However, it was recently announced that Rio Tinto has slashed US$1.2 billion from the value of its Australian alumina assets on the back of the federal government's safeguard mechanism, writing off the value of the Yarwun Alumina Refinery completely due to the need to buy carbon offsets for this asset. Rio has also slashed $227 million for the value share of Queensland Alumina Limited.

Since Labor's safeguard mechanism was announced, I have called it an attack on heavy industry and the thousands of workers that work in the sector—and it has proved to be exactly that. While Labor claim to be a friend of the working man and woman, they're happy to shut down these industries that employ them. You simply cannot trust them with your job.

What does the Labor government's 43 per cent emissions target mean for Central Queensland? What does their safeguard mechanism mean for us in Central Queensland, and how is it going to affect us? How is it going to affect the manufacturing industries in Gladstone, and what will it mean for all the people who work there and have jobs there? Anyone in business knows that the value write-off of a business asset is the first step to the possible closure of that business.

The safeguard mechanism is not the first desperate and dodgy deal that has been done with the Greens to pass legislation. One of the many deals was for the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation Bill, which is going to hurt the Australian manufacturing industry. Every manufacturer I speak to is already struggling with power prices and the dodgy deals done with the Greens to which Labor is beholden to. Labor supported the Greens' amendments, which means that the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund Corporation will not fund any coal, gas or pipeline infrastructure, or logging of native forests—the same industries where Labor has taken hardworking men and women for granted for far too long. Australian manufacturers rely on cheap energy to make things onshore, but this demonisation of gas, broken promises to bring down power prices and the implementation of the safeguard mechanism will force more Australian manufacturing industries offshore. This means fewer jobs for Australians and fewer jobs for my local community, and we are seeing exactly that. Every time the Labor government comes to power, they make crazy deals with the Greens that are not in the interests of families and businesses of average Australians. It is quite simple: if we have no industries in Gladstone, we will have no jobs there.