John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will only take a couple of minutes to add my support to my colleagues on this side. Adding costs to export industries does nothing but harm. Of course I have an interest in this. We are fortunate to have Bindaree Beef at Inverell, a magnificent abattoir employing around 600 people. It means an extra $350,000 a year for that abattoir. They are going to face enough if the emissions trading scheme is brought in. It is going to cost the abattoir about an extra $1million a year in electricity alone. So I have just put $1.35 million extra cost onto that industry.

Those costs are not being borne in America. Under the Waxman-Markey bill, when they get the ETS they are not going to have that cost put on them. So this is just another cost put onto export industries, another nail in the coffin of these vital, value-adding industries that are so essential for jobs in our rural communities. That is why I support the disallowance.

The government must get serious about not putting extra costs on or removing benefits from export industries, but instead get behind those very industries. Times are tough in the bush and we know very well that as soon as abattoirs face extra cost they will pass it onto the farmers, the beef producers. Then it will flow right through the whole community and regional communities will lose that money. We know who is going to pay for it. It is wrong. The analogy that some have made about the car industry and our meat industry says it all. The government is putting billions behind the car industry, which exports $2 billion a year. But they want to add some costs to our meat industry, which exports around $8 billion a year. I think that it is unfair and I gladly support the disallowance.