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

I rise to speak on the motion that the Senate take note of the Senate Select Committee on Scrutiny of New Taxes interim report, which is very appropriately titled The carbon tax: economic pain for no environmental gain. In speaking to this, I might say, excellent report, I again emphasise the title of that report, which really, as far as the carbon tax goes, says it all. We recognise in Australia that the tax will bring no economic benefit and certainly no environmental benefit but will cause considerable pain to all Australians. At the last election, nearly every politician standing for election had that same view: no environmental gain but a lot of economic pain if you bring it in. That is why 90 per cent of the candidates standing at the last election promised that there would be no carbon tax. Indeed, it was a commitment made by Mr Tony Abbott, the leader of the Liberal-National Party. He committed that there would be no carbon tax, but so also did Ms Gillard, the leader of the Labor Party, who, with hand on heart, told Australians, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' Here we are, a year or so after that solemn promise was made, and we find that there has passed through this parliament, at the initiation of Ms Gillard, just that carbon tax which she promised not to introduce under her government. It makes me and the people of my state of Queensland wonder: can you trust anything that a Labor Party politician tells you?

This report that we are discussing today sets out clearly the difficulties that all Australians, but particularly Australians living in a state like Queensland, will suffer. It is the sort of tax that I would have hoped that my government in Queensland would have been strongly opposed to. As this report mentions, there is an enormous upswelling of opposition to a carbon tax right throughout Australia. Indeed, in my state of Queensland Mr Campbell Newman, the leader of the Liberal National Party in that state, has promised to do what he can to ensure that this tax burden is not imposed on Queenslanders should he be successful in the Queensland election on 24 March. What Mr Campbell Newman—if I may give him his better known title, 'Can Do' Campbell Newman—is saying to the people of Queensland is, 'I am going to stand up for your rights. I know you don't want a carbon tax. I know that you think it will impact upon mining and manufacturing in my state of Queensland. I know, Queenslanders, that you understand what the carbon tax is going to do to the tourism industry in Queensland'. For anyone like Senator McLucas or me who lives a long way from the capital city, any goods we get come on big transports, and the extra cost of fuel and electricity is just going to add and add and add to the costs of living of all Queenslanders, but particularly those living outside the capital city.