Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Economics Legislation Committee investigated climate change with absolute thoroughness. It held hearings from Western Australia to Tasmania, Melbourne, Sydney and Queensland. Overwhelming evidence was given by just about every industry that came before it—from the abattoirs to the cheese industry, the dairy industry, the paper industry, the mining industry, the coal industry and so on. You could just about write your own ticket that two things were certain from every industry that came before the Senate committee: firstly, that their profit was going to go down; and, secondly, that they would have to lay off many, many people. But we were told by Sharan Burrow not to worry because there are going to be plenty of green jobs—they will be sprouting out of the woodwork.

It may interest Senator Macdonald to learn that I actually went up into the coalfields last week. Senator Macdonald would know, because he lives there, that these workers work exceedingly hard and are exceedingly well paid. But they earn their money; they work 12 hours a day and up to 14 days and then they have time off to go back to their properties—many at the seaside. I put it to them that a green job was probably worth $40,000 or $50,000 if they were lucky. If they were very lucky, they would be getting $40,000 or $50,000. But I did have to warn them that there was no money allocated to go into Central Queensland and not one green job. I find it very interesting that that the CFMEU are acting as cheerleaders for this emissions trading scheme. The only thing I can conclude is that there has been a deal done with the union movement and a deal done with the more progressive element of the Labor Party—the doctor’s wives in green leafy suburbs. And the deal was, ‘Well, we’ll give you Work Choices but you roll over when we introduce an ETS.’ That is the only possible way that I can see any union supporting this.

One of the elements that came up in the Senate select committee was the Treasury modelling. I just could not understand it. In fact I said to one of the Treasury witnesses, ‘Just tell me what will happen if no-one else goes into this and we are out on our Pat Malone.’ She said: ‘Oh, that would be terrific. That would be great. The people who do not go into it, their economies will be booming and they will be able to buy product off us.’ I thought I had misheard her. I asked the question again and I got the same answer. With modelling like that I am not sure that it does anyone any good. There was a closure rule imposed on the modelling, and it was forced to show no change in unemployment. It went like this: no-one will be unemployed because wages will fall and when wages fall then someone will employ the person whose wages have fallen. I thought to myself, ‘That would not be too well received up in the Bowen Basin.’ So I actually told the miners this. I said, ‘Don’t worry, you will be employed; but it will be at a much lower rate of pay.’

Then we were told that the modelling was done on the assumption that all countries were going to go into this and we would not be left on our own. I said, ‘Russia is not going into it. It has said so quite clearly.’ China, South Africa and India are other countries that have said they have other priorities. And what about getting Algeria into this—and Angola, Ecuador, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Libya and Nigeria. They are all modelled to come in in 2015. The whole thing is a total nonsense that is designed to cost a huge number of jobs. Jobs will be just obliterated, and the people who are going to pay for this are the blue-collar workers. (Time expired)