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

Senator Lundy, you say this is a filibuster. I am asking a question. I do not know what you are doing here. Certainly your interjections are not helpful. The leader of our nation at the present time, the Leader of the Labor Party, made a solemn promise to the Australian public just a few days before an election, a promise upon which many Australians voted for your party, Senator Lundy. Then they found out that the trust they put in the Leader of the Labor Party, our current Prime Minister, was just shattered. If that is what you call filibustering, get used to it, get over it!

Every opportunity I get, I will reflect the views of my constituents, which are, 'How can we have a Prime Minister who is so deliberately dishonest?' It is not only the Prime Minister. You have distracted me, Senator Lundy, from the bill before the chamber—and I want to get back to that. It is not just the Leader of the Labor Party, but the Deputy Leader of the Labor Party, Mr Swan, as well. When Mr Abbott promised people in Australia, 'As sure as night follows day, when Labor and the Greens get together after an election, you are going to have a carbon tax,' Mr Swan said, 'He's being hysterical.' On 12 occasions or more, Mr Abbott told the Australian public that the Labor Party would break their promise and introduce a carbon tax and Mr Swan said, 'He is being hysterical.' Why do I mention it? Please interject again, Senator Lundy, but I want to get back to the bill before the chamber, the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Budget Measures) Bill 2010.

There is no more important facility to support families than assistance with child care. As I understand this bill, it is going to make the costs of child care even greater for the ordinary family. Perhaps living in this wonderful city of Canberra, which has almost every facility, Senator Lundy would not understand that where I come from—a great part of the world; Northern Australia, the future of Australia, is magnificent at this time of the year but around Christmas time it gets pretty hot—there would not be a responsible childcare centre that did not have air conditioning for use in the warmer months of the year Again, I am not sure what people in this chamber know about the cost of air conditioning, but it is a fairly big power user. It eats into the power. With the carbon tax, the cost of that electricity—that power and energy providing the air conditioning and the comfort for young people in childcare centres—is just going to skyrocket. Young families taking advantage of childcare facilities are not only going to be slugged by the bill before the parliament but are going to be slugged with the increased costs of their childcare centre in all sorts of ways. I particularly draw your attention to what a carbon tax will do to the cost of power and therefore the cost of energy in that great part of our country, Northern Australia. It is no longer a luxury in Northern Australia. Northern Australians are entitled to the same sort of comfortable life that people in Canberra have. To do that, air conditioning has become essential.

I ask you to think about what a carbon tax will do to the cost of power and what the increase in the cost of power will do to people in childcare centres who have to have air conditioning to get through the day. Might I add, going to the other end of the scale where perhaps I do have a greater conflict of interest, all of the aged-care facilities in Northern Australia are big users of air conditioning, and so they should be. People in the later stages of their lives who have pioneered the north, who have made a magnificent contribution to the Australian economy over many decades, are entitled in their later years to have the benefit of cooling that air conditioning brings. For many elderly people, particularly those still living in their own homes on a pension, when the carbon tax comes in the cost of their power is going to increase and many of them will of necessity have to turn off their air conditioners. That will not only cause them discomfort but in many cases, as you well know on the other side, it can cause significant health problems and even death. All of this will follow.

I digress to say that yesterday in question time some of the Labor Party people on the other side were suggesting that you cannot believe Western Australian government modelling because it is a Liberal government in Western Australia, or that you cannot believe New South Wales Treasury public service modelling because there happens to be a Liberal Premier. I wonder why you can follow that hypothesis but not follow the hypothesis that perhaps Commonwealth modelling is not accurate because there is a Labor leader who has proved herself to be dishonest. You never know what is happening in the Labor Party with these sorts of things.

Even on the federal government's own modelling across the whole of Australia prices are going to go up by 10 per cent. According to the New South Wales government modelling, which I happen to think accords more with reality, it is going to be up 15 to 20 per cent. The Queensland government are doing things but we get confused answers from them. I know they know the answers but they do not want to tell us about them because it might have a political element. You might be aware that when we talk about climate change issues in Queensland the head of the climate change section of the Queensland government just happens to be the Premier's husband. As I understand it, he got that job without any competitive application. I believe he is quite a competent and able person and probably does a good job. My understanding though is that there was no competitive tendering for that job. On climate change issues with the Queensland government, at times you are never quite sure where the dividing line is.

Getting back to the point I am making, the question I want to ask the parliamentary secretary is: even if, as you said in your answer to Senator Nash, some of the cost is met by the government, isn't it a fact that there are still considerable additional cost increases on average families using the support of childcare facilities? While I am at it, I ask you, Parliamentary Secretary: is the government making any contingency plans for the additional costs in childcare centres and in child support agencies that will necessarily follow the introduction of a carbon tax? As you will remember, that is the tax that the current Prime Minister promised would never be introduced under a government she led. Is the government making any contingency plans for additional support to agencies and support services for children and for elderly people that must follow when a carbon tax is introduced and when prices of power are increased anywhere between 15 to 20 per cent and will keep increasing over the next few years? I do not want to hold up the Senate. I do not want to take my full time on this. I will stop now and ask the parliamentary secretary to perhaps answer my questions.