Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

In lauding the work of the Senate Select Committee on Fuel and Energy, Senator Cormann naturally, because he is full of humility, did not mention that that committee was very well chaired by none other than Senator Cormann. He was the driving force on the wide range of issues that that committee looked at. As Senator Cormann has said, the committee was always interested in the resource super profits tax, and the minerals resource rent tax which has followed it.

The committee looked at the impact a price on carbon, a carbon tax, would have. As a member of that committee I was delighted to hear before the election that the Prime Minister, Ms Gillard, ruled out categorically that there would be any carbon tax should Labor be re-elected to government. It took less than a month, after stitching up some dodgy deal with a couple of the Independents, for Ms Gillard to announce that, contrary to her pre-election promise, she was now considering a carbon tax.

The fuel and energy committee looked at the impact that things like the resource super profits tax, the mining resource rent tax and a carbon tax would have on people, particularly those in the north of Australia—in the north of Queensland and the north of Western Australia—who produce most of the wealth of this country, the wealth that keeps us all, no matter where we live, enjoying the sort of lifestyle we have in this country. Ms Gillard and Mr Swan failed to understand the number of workers whose jobs depend on a buoyant and profitable mining industry—not only the workers directly involved but those employed by all of the support businesses that make up a substantial part of communities like Rockhampton, Gladstone, Mackay, Townsville, Mount Isa, Darwin and across the Pilbara. It surprises me that my colleagues sitting opposite in this chamber, most of whom came to this chamber from the union movement, have not lifted one finger to support their members, who are the people who would be most affected by the introduction of these taxes that Mr Swan seems so keen to introduce.

This final committee report goes through a lot of those issues and highlights many. I want to alert the Senate and anyone who might be listening that the introduction of a carbon tax, which is now proposed by Prime Minister Gillard—directly contrary, I repeat, to the assurance she gave the Australian people prior to the election—will have an impact on jobs. I regret to say that it will impact on the jobs of people in the Bowen Basin coalfields—from Emerald up through Moranbah to Collinsville—the same people the Labor Party claims to be representing in this parliament. They are the people who will suffer when these taxes are imposed, if perchance the Australian parliament allows them to be introduced against the pre-election promise of Ms Gillard.

I appeal to senators from the Labor Party to stand up and not be the zombies that Senator Cameron mentioned many of the backbenchers were: have a say; speak up for those people you are supposed to represent; point out to Mr Swan in his mad grab for cash that people’s lives and jobs and futures are at stake. We all know that the introduction of a carbon tax will not make one iota of difference to the greenhouse gas emissions in the world, with Australia emitting less than 1.2 per cent of world emissions. Even if we shut Australia down completely it would have absolutely no impact on greenhouse gas emissions, yet the impact it would have would be to make Australia uncompetitive and put up electricity prices for all of us. Perhaps we in this chamber can afford those increases in electricity prices, but I can tell you, Madam Acting Deputy President, that many of my constituents in Queensland are simply not in a position to pay the huge extra cost that will follow from the introduction of a carbon tax. I am delighted that this final report of the Fuel and Energy Select Committee raised a lot of those issues. It is therefore a report that I commend to the Senate.

Question agreed to.