Senate debates

Wednesday, 10 October 2012

Questions without Notice: Take Note of Answers

Carbon Pricing

3:04 pm

Photo of Marise PayneMarise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for COAG) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (Senator Ludwig) to a question without notice asked by Senator Macdonald today relating to carbon pricing.

I listened—at least I tried to listen—to the words of Senator Ludwig, but it seemed to me that the more he used the word 'confused' the more confused he became, because his answer was virtually unintelligible in response to Senator Macdonald's quite clear three questions—both his primary question and his supplementary questions—in relation to the government's prediction of the carbon price being $29 by 2015-16. The mystery as to what Senator Ludwig was actually talking about may remain uncovered for some time, perhaps until Senator Macdonald gets to pursue that further.

What we on this side know about the carbon tax is the devastating effect that it is having on members of the Australian community. In my portfolio of housing, in particular, and—as my colleagues would know—in Western Sydney in particular, residents are looking at a hike of $208-plus in electricity bills, along with a multitude of indirect cost increases that nobody receives any compensation for, and most certainly the small businesses bearing them receive no compensation for them.

We have a hub for new homebuyers in my area of Western Sydney, and we have new home builders who are trying to start their lives and their families, but all the carbon tax is doing is making it that much harder. The Housing Industry Association estimates that the carbon tax will add $5,200 to the cost of building an average new home—even after compensation. If you think about the families that we all work with every single day, right around Australia, that does make a difference to a family's capacity to commit. When they are sitting around the kitchen table discussing whether they can build their new home, it does make a difference to whether they are actually able to sign on the bottom line, and anyone who does not think it does is not living in the real world. No matter how much this government talk about compensation, no matter how often they try to protest—methinks too much—they are denying the reality of the situation in which so many Australian families find themselves.

It is ironic indeed that the government would find themselves penalising people for building newer and more energy-efficient homes. Surely that is a particularly perverse approach that does nothing for the environment in the end. We already have a housing shortage in this country of over 228,000 homes. But, if the Labor government were actually listening to the concerns of stakeholders, they would see that the carbon tax is only making things much worse. If they do not want to listen to members of the opposition, perhaps they will listen to people who are actually experts in their particular areas, like the CEO of the Master Builders Association, Wilhelm Harnisch, who said:

… work in the pipeline is at very low levels and profit margins are low to non-existent. Builders and contractors have no capacity to absorb any cost increases incurred as a consequence of the carbon tax.

Mr Harnisch also said:

Treasury’s carbon tax modelling indicates that the carbon tax will reduce the gross output in the building and construction industry by 5.6 per cent by 2050. This impact is considerably higher than negative impacts on mining and manufacturing, which are anticipated to go down 4.3 per cent and 2.8 per cent respectively.

That is a very considered, very authoritative view of the impact of this government's policy on a vital Australian industry.

If the HIA is not enough for you, then what about the small business operator in Western Sydney—in Greenway in fact—who makes home construction products? He is completely reliant on the home-building industry. He tells us that he has recently reduced his factory operation from 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to 24 hours a day, five days a week, and turned off some machines altogether. The flow-on impact from that on jobs in communities which need more jobs in the areas in which they live, not fewer, is a very significant one. But, no, we are simply told to refer to the modelling and that that will answer the question, but it does not. It does not answer the question for real Australians, and they are the people whom we are representing here in this chamber.

We find small businesses across Australia but particularly in Western Sydney who are also concerned about the uncertainty that the tax is causing their business. They know that their costs will go up but they have no mechanism to recover those costs through their own prices because they will end up with the ACCC and Labor's multitude of other regulatory bodies talking to them about how they are doing that and why they are doing that. It is a one-way street that this government has set up to blindly pursue their policy in relation to this, without any real consideration of the impact that it is having on real Australians and the price that they have to pay. (Time expired)

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