Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

It was done by EMRS actually, an independent poll. Only 17 per cent strongly supported the carbon tax. They cannot even do half the percentage of those that oppose it in Tasmania. That is also showing through in the more general polling about the government. In fact, there are predictions in Tasmania that the Labor Party will be third in the next poll, behind the Greens. You might be interested in that, Mr Acting Deputy President Ludlam. I know you cannot comment from the chair, but it might bring a smile to your face that the Labor Party could even be the third party in Tasmania at the next poll that comes along.

Senator Marshall interjecting—

Another one of the city-centric senators has come in to talk about regional Australia. Welcome, Senator Marshall. It is good to see you here. It really is delightful to see you here to talk about regional Australia.

I was at a growers meeting on Wednesday night last week. They actually understand the climate. They understand seasonal variability. What they are concerned about is their R&D dollar—how it is apportioned, how it is spent, how the extension from that works. They are not running out telling me that they want a carbon tax. In fact, the attitude to it in the room was quite contrary to what we are being told about, particularly by Senator Thistlethwaite, who obviously has ventured outside the city on the odd occasion to talk to some constituents—which is encouraging, I have to say.

But then you look at the direct impacts. I have already mentioned the impact on the dairy industry, which is significantly impacted. The dairy industry and the beef industry, which Senator Williams has already mentioned, are the two agricultural sectors that are most severely impacted. Prime Minister Gillard—the name that the Labor Party dare not utter in the current debate—dropped into King Island a few weeks ago on the way to Tasmania to have a chat to the locals about the carbon tax and a number of other things. She tried to convince constituents that the impact would be less than one per cent. Unsurprisingly, they did not believe the Prime Minister, because they know that the cost of shipping will increase because there is no exemption for shipping fuel and that the cost of aviation will increase because there is no exemption for aviation fuel. Everything that comes in and goes out of King Island is either shipped or flown. People know that they will disproportionately be impacted in their regional community because of the impact of the carbon tax.

It would be nice if members of the government were prepared to actually address the impact on regional Australia in their contributions to this debate. But they are not. They trot out the government's 'modelling' because that is all they have. Of course, regional Australia is expected to believe that the modelling which is done on a broad base can be extrapolated back to regional Australia. Regional Australians know it cannot be. The compensation, which is based on this broad based modelling, also does not fit regional Australia.

When the Prime Minister told constituents on King Island that they would be compensated for this less-than-one-per-cent cost to their economy (a) they did not believe that the cost would be limited to less than one per cent and (b) they obviously did not believe that the compensation would be adequate, either, because it will not. They know that the cost of their goods that come in by either ship or air will go up by more than that number. They know that, and that is borne out by the polling that has been done in Tasmania, which has the most regionally dispersed population of any state in the country. They know that and they understand that.

ABARES held their outlook conference in Launceston last week. The farmers actually do understand the real deficiencies in things like the Carbon Farming Initiative, where you cannot even plant a windbreak, because the government says it is common practice. We are not doing the things that we ought to be encouraging.

Then you come to what is as regional as anything that you will get, and that is my portfolio area, which is forestry. The government are not doing anything in that area that might be supportive of one industry that has a really strong capacity to benefit the globe. If that is what they say they want to do in respect of carbon storage, then they are driven by green prejudice and dogma. They exclude biomass from the carbon tax. Why? I have no answer to that, except for green dogma and prejudice. If you look at biomass—and the Greens have mentioned in this place our life-cycle costings of energy generation—you will see that it has four per cent of the emissions that coal has. So reduce your emissions by 96 per cent by using biomass. What do the Labor Party do? Obviously, at the insistence of the Greens—the Green masters say 'exclude biomass'—it is out of the carbon tax. Here we have a method where you could generate 8,000 megawatts of energy without touching another twig or tree. Yet the Greens and the Labor Party rule this out. The Labor Party say that they are looking to reduce Australia's carbon emissions but what they really do in their legislation does not actually achieve that.

The Carbon Farming Initiative does not achieve that and the farmers know it. The carbon tax is a disaster for regional Australia and the farmers know it and they tell us. The Labor Party are right: the farmers are prepared to work with seasonal variation, they are prepared to manage their country sustainably, but the Labor Party's policy platform does not allow them to do that and does not provide incentives. Why rule out the opportunity to put in a windbreak? If a farmer is not doing that and you can put those trees, that biomass, which will store carbon as it grows, back into the landscape, why deny the capacity to do that? It is just absurd.

We hear rhetoric from the Labor Party, the dogma about the science and all that sort of stuff. I am not sure they actually believe it, because their policy at the end of the day does not achieve it. It certainly disadvantages regional Australia. Their modelling does not look at regional Australia; it just lumps them in with the rest of Australia and we are expected to accept this 0.7 of a per cent. Less than one per cent is what we are told time and time again, and it just will not work for regional Australia. (Time expired)