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

It is very timely that this matter be debated in the Senate. This is a disaster facing Australia—a carbon tax—and it will be a greater disaster for rural and regional Australia, where everything has to be carried in or taken out. It is going to be not only a carbon tax but a tax on transport that fits in with a carbon tax, and rural Australia is going to pay a very heavy price for this.

It does not really have to. The Labor vote in New England was eight per cent, and the Labor vote in Lyne was 13 per cent, yet those representatives are going to vote for a carbon tax that is going to hit rural and regional Australia desperately. When you think about this, you would have to think this is the greatest sell-out since Judas Iscariot took 30 pieces of silver. That is what it amounts to. These people have betrayed their electorates. The National Party whip took a survey the other day in New England and in Lyne, and that vote was 89 per cent against a carbon tax in New England and 87 per cent against a carbon tax in Lyne. Yet these two people are going to vote for a carbon tax that is going to hit their electorates harder than any other electorates. What a betrayal! What an absolute, total betrayal of the people that they represent! I expect both of them are looking for alternative areas to get an income from after the next election, and that next election is going to come around one way or another—maybe in three months time; maybe in six months time—and the people are going to seek their vengeance for this carbon tax. But none will be seeking it harder than the people in regional Australia.

But, before we get onto the effects of what is going to happen in regional Australia, this carbon tax really is unworkable. The Labor Party say that it is the greatest thing for Australia, but there is no modelling done. Senator Wong has said today that the modelling is available. ABARES modelling is not available. The ABARES modelling that this carbon tax is based on is not available. I have asked questions in the estimates committee. People have gone down and tried to buy it and have been refused. So how can anyone go to Australia and say, 'Here is a plan, and that plan is based on a model, but no-one has seen the model'? It is not just Senator Ron Boswell saying that; it is people like McKibbin and Ergas, who are some of the most prominent economists in Australia. They cannot get the model. They do not know what is in the modelling.

The modelling is based on assumptions, and the assumptions are that the rest of the world is going to do this by 2016. The rest of the world have shown no indication of doing it at all—none whatsoever—yet the Labor Party merrily goes along and says, 'The modelling is there.' The modelling is not there, and I will give a donation to the Labor Party if it produces this modelling. I will even give it to your union, Senator Cameron. That is how confident I am that the modelling is not available and never will be available, because if it were available then it would be out there in a package put in every letterbox if it proved that the Labor Party modelling was accurate and that there would be more jobs and more income coming in. The reason that modelling is not available and never will be available is that it would disprove what the Labor Party have said. The committee has written to the Treasurer, and the Treasurer has said the modelling is not available. People in various peak bodies have gone down and tried to find the modelling, yet we are told it is not available.

So the whole thing becomes a farce. The whole carbon tax is a farce because there is nothing it is based on—only the assumption that the rest of the world is going to get there by 2016. India is not going to get there. America is not going to be in it. Tokyo will not do it if America does not do it. India has said it is not going to do it. Jakarta cannot do it. The rest of the world will not get there. Yet we proceed down here, and the people that are going to get crunched the hardest are going to be the people from rural and regional Australia.

When you go through it and look at all industries out there—the dairy industry; the aviation industry; abattoirs; fruit; vegetables; fish processors—everything that moves in and out of Australia's regional areas is going to get hit. The greatest creator of jobs in Australia at the moment—it employs 200,000 people in rural and regional Australia—is the mining industry. It has 200,000 direct employees and 600,000 indirect employees, and it accounts for 55 per cent of the exports in Australia. One in four regional jobs depends on exports, and a carbon tax is going to hit that industry to the tune of $25 billion. That is what the carbon tax is going to cost. That is not what the mining tax is going to cost on top of that; that is what the carbon tax is going to cost. Then to come in here and say, 'Well, we're going to create jobs; everything's going to be all right in rural Australia,' is just an absolute nonsense, and the fact is that everyone knows it. That is why the vote of the Labor Party is so low. That is why the Labor Party is bottoming out at around 26 per cent. The sooner the election comes, the better it will be for all of us. I had a call the other day from a very irate person. He said I could use his name, so I will use his name. People in Brisbane will know the company I am talking about. It is Morgans Seafoods from Redcliffe. Morgans have a fishing company and they have a restaurant. In the restaurant, electricity charges are going to go up $7,856 in 2013 and by 2015 they will have gone up by $8,679. That is for the restaurant. For their wholesale fish coldroom, electricity charges will go up $16,982—effectively $17,000—in 2014 and by 2015 they will have gone up by $18,762.

Every farm that produces fruit or vegetables has a coldroom. The carbon tax will mean those coldrooms will cost an extra $15,000, $16,000 or $18,000 to run. Every farm that produces food puts it in a coldroom. It is transferred in a refrigerated truck into another coldroom. So there is going to be a carbon tax on every piece of food that goes into or out of a farm.

There is going to be a carbon tax on fuel. It starts off at 6c a litre and it works its way up. For vehicles that are under 4½ tonnes, it starts off at 5.52c in 2013 and in 2014 it goes to nearly 7c. That is going to add to the cost of every piece of food— (Time expired)