Senate debates
Monday, 7 November 2011
Bills
Clean Energy Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Income Tax Rates Amendments) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Household Assistance Amendments) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Tax Laws Amendments) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Fuel Tax Legislation Amendment) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Customs Tariff Amendment) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Excise Tariff Legislation Amendment) Bill 2011, Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas (Import Levy) Amendment Bill 2011, Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas (Manufacture Levy) Amendment Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Unit Shortfall Charge — General) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Unit Issue Charge — Auctions) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Unit Issue Charge — Fixed Charge) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (International Unit Surrender Charge) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Charges — Customs) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Charges — Excise) Bill 2011, Clean Energy Regulator Bill 2011, Climate Change Authority Bill 2011; In Committee
12:27 pm
Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source
The minister is clearly not prepared to explain the policy rationale, and so I might leave that there. But let me just make this observation. Macquarie Generation is at the top of the government's carbon tax hit list, not because it is more polluting than anybody else, not because it has a higher emissions intensity than anybody else but because of the volume of electricity that it generates. It is generating electricity in a way that is more environmentally efficient than a number of other electricity generators. It is generating that electricity in a less emissions-intensive way, and yet this government is going to hit this company with a $540 million tax in year one, going up year after year after year, for its efforts.
If you want to do well under this government, you have to make sure that you are more polluting, not less. If you want get the handouts from this government under the merry-go-round of the carbon tax, you have to be a more emissions-intensive electricity generator. If you are an electricity generator that has lower emissions intensity, you will be punished. The reason you will be punished is that you are so successful in providing a large volume of electricity, even though you are providing that large volume of electricity at a lower emissions intensity than other providers in the market. That is just ridiculous. When we asked the minister to give us an explanation as to why that is the case and why the government thinks that is a good way to go about things, all she said was, 'Well, that is our advice.' Okay. But why? The minister's answer is: 'That is our advice; we're not going to give you an explanation as to why we think that we should hit Macquarie Generation with a $540 million tax without transitional assistance whatsoever. You're just the Australian parliament; you're just the Senate. Who cares about giving any explanation to the Senate as to why that is a good idea? Who cares about the impact that's going to have on consumers in New South Wales?'
Here we have Senator Thistlethwaite sitting in the chamber saying that this is a great idea. And this government is about to whack—
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