Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I endorse that reference, Madam Acting Deputy President. The Greens will not be supporting this legislation. We believe there is a much better use for this guarantee money than the use to which the government now wishes to put it. But we do not want to back an estimated $550 million more of taxpayers’ money going to this industry. It must be seen in the context of a much wider support base for the industry from government in Australia. The fringe benefits tax concession was worth $1.9 billion. The Commonwealth recently gave $149 million to Holden for the production of four-cylinder cars. The government announced last year a $1.3 billion Green Car Innovation Fund. The government is carrying on the Howard government’s move to continue to provide $2 billion more to industry over the period 2006 to 2010 through tax credits on imported cars. The Rudd government has committed a further $3.4 billion in assistance for the industry, which it plans to roll out from 2011 to 2020.

The addition $550 million in support for car dealerships stands in contrast to the outrage expressed by the industry against the increase in the luxury car tax in 2008. There are legitimate questions over why this industry is supported above funding for the public transport sector. The government indicated in the last budget that it will spend $3.2 billion on metro rail over five years at an average of just $637 million a year. This is just one-third of the annual assistance provided to the car industry from the fringe benefits tax. Surely, that is totally out of whack in an age of climate change and an age of a very great need for infrastructure to go into the public transport sector. Such funding further institutionalises car dependence, increases our vulnerability to rising oil prices, and creates costs to our health and our community.

In the second reading debate the coalition indicated they are largely supporting this bill because it will support and protect jobs in country areas. We believe the money could be much better spent not just on protecting jobs in country regions but through a green new deal creating thousands more jobs in the country. The government ought to be equally concerned about the impact of climate change on many more jobs in rural and regional areas, including 128,000 jobs in the Murray-Darling Basin and 63,000 jobs on the Great Barrier Reef. It ought to be willing and prepared to support a higher renewable energy target and a higher greenhouse gas abatement target. That will do much more to generate employment than ensuring the car industry in the diminishing way in which this program has been put forward. It is public money. There are alternative uses. There are better uses for creating jobs in rural and regional Australia. The Greens have put those uses forward, and we want to see the money go in that direction instead.

Debate interrupted.