Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Those Australians who might be driving home at the moment and listening to this broadcast might consider these things next time they go to the grocery store. When they notice their grocery bill increasing yet again, they should understand that it is the Rudd Labor government that is adding to the cost of their grocery bill, adding to the cost of their electricity bill and adding to the cost of their fuel bill. This government is putting upward pressure on inflation and that will mean increased interest rates. And we all know the Labor government’s record when it comes to interest rates—17½ per cent on housing loans back in the Keating days. This bill continues the approach of the Labor government to continue adding to the cost of the weekly grocery bill.

I understand that this bill effectively brings back the indexation of the fuel excise. Mr Acting Deputy President, you will remember the half-yearly indexation of the fuel excise, which was brought in by Mr Keating, the last Labor Prime Minister. It increased the price of fuel enormously back in those days, probably from something like 70c a litre to 75c a litre, and then to 80c as the excise went up each six months. That is how Labor manages the economy and their money. They sneak a bit in every six months by stealth. It does not go through the budget; it just automatically increases every six months. That was a disgrace.

One of the best things the Howard government did was to stop back in 2001 the automatic indexation of the fuel excise that the last Labor government introduced. That was seven years ago. Since then, the Commonwealth’s take from the taxes on fuel has remained constant in finite terms, which means that in real terms it has actually gone down. That is what the Howard government and the coalition were all about—reducing costs, reducing imposts, reducing pressure on inflation and pressure on working families.

Under this legislation—one of the first pieces of legislation from the next Labor government—what do we have? We have the indexation of fuel excise being brought back in. That is a disgrace. No-one from the government side has talked about it. My understanding is that the Fuel Tax Act—which is related to this and which was introduced on the sly in the House on 13 March to take effect from 1 January next year—is in fact bringing back the indexation of fuel excise. That is just going to add to grocery prices each day.

I pointed out in an earlier speech today that this is on top of the Labor Party’s approach to the mandatory renewable energy target, which, according to the experts, will add a cost of around $1.5 billion to the economy and drive up power bills by six per cent. You do not have to be a great economist to work out that, with those sorts of imposts on the Australian people, the cost of living is going to skyrocket. I am particularly distressed for people who live in rural and regional Australia, as I do. I live 1,500 kilometres from my capital city, and a lot of the produce that is produced up my way is, under the arrangements that seem to be the norm these days, sent down to Brisbane or Sydney or Melbourne and then trucked back to Woolworths or Coles or IGA up in the north. Just imagine the cost of transport on that—it is horrendous. But if you then think of what the cost of transport will be in the future under this legislation from the Labor government, you can understand that the cost is going to escalate enormously.

Another thing that is wrong with this bill—there are lots of things wrong with it—is that it will selectively have a greater impost on the more productive vehicles. As Senator Scullion quite rightly pointed out, the registration on B-doubles is going to increase from $8,000 to $14,000-odd and on a B-triple the charge is going to skyrocket to $20,340, to be exact. That impost on the more productive transport vehicles is going to discourage the trucking industry. I hear Senator Hutchins’s pious words about the tough time the Transport Workers Union has. Well, with him and Senator Sterle and Senator Conroy being part of the TWU, does one wonder why the truckies have not been terribly well looked after? Senator Conroy is a very senior man in this new government and obviously knows the trucking industry back to front—well, he knows the union industry back to front; I am not sure he knows which is the steering wheel on a truck. But one would have thought that at least someone like Senator Conroy, as an old TWU executive, would have been in there fighting for the industry and fighting to keep costs down and therefore to keep jobs in the industry. It seems that this government has absolutely no interest in the trucking industry and certainly no interest in those who use the trucking industry.

As I mentioned, these imposts in this legislation, this huge increase in taxes on the trucking industry, will impact more heavily on those who live outside the capital cities. I am trying desperately to think of any of the ministers in this government who might live out of the capital cities.