Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Employment (Senator Abetz) to a question without notice asked by Senator Milne today relating to the proposed repeal of the carbon tax.

We have had so many lies told around Australia about the impact of carbon pricing. We had the Minister for Agriculture, Barnaby Joyce, telling people that a lamb roast would be $100 more. We had the Prime Minister telling the people of Whyalla that they would be wiped off the face of the earth. We had the Prime Minister telling people that building a new home would cost $6,000 less if the carbon price goes. I asked Senator Abetz today where this $550 figure comes from; it comes from Treasury modelling, and the Treasury modelling included $250 for food, clothing and rent. None of those things—none of them—are captured by the government's pass-through provisions: that is, there will be no requirement for anyone selling food and clothing or renting a property to talk about the impact of carbon pricing or otherwise. And if anyone is deluded enough to think that food prices are suddenly going to go down, or rent is going to go down, or clothes are going to get cheaper, then they need to really look at this situation because it is just not true.

The reality here is: people are not going to save money. They are, in fact, going to be a lot worse off. I want to put to the Senate that this goes particularly to the issue of the value of homes and the value of insurance. Already Choice has brought out a report this year, Buyer beware: home insurance, extreme weather and climate change, which points out a number of high-risk locations around Australia where insurance is already unavailable or unaffordable. In places like Roma, for example, it is practically impossible to afford insurance. Around Australia, anywhere that is subject to storm surge, extreme weather events, or more extreme fires, people are struggling to be able to get home insurance, and that means that there is a revaluation of their assets happening right now based on climate risk.

People are being told they are going to be better off, but you have Woolworths saying: 'No, conveniently, we didn't actually price any increase on food into our prices in our supermarkets. Therefore, there will be no cheaper prices because we didn't put it through in the first place.' Qantas are also out there saying: 'Yes, we put on a fuel excise but now we've taken it off. We're not passing it on to passengers because actually we absorbed it ourselves.' Part of the reason that Qantas and Virgin have been in this downward spiral of pricing is that they both absorbed any costs themselves, and so it is not going to be passed through to passengers. They are going to pay exactly the same as they are paying now, if not more, as time goes on.

So all of this talk about cost savings is just a complete nonsense, and it is just outrageous in Australia that people have been told so many lies. I refer to one business in particular: Frozpak in Canberra. The Prime Minister went there with the now Minister for the Environment, Mr Hunt—he was in opposition at the time—and they stood there and said, 'This business will incur a $60,000 increase in costs because of carbon pricing in one year.' And a large percentage of that was because of synthetic greenhouse gases, apparently. Now, however, we find that that business is unlikely to incur any penalty. It is one of the areas that will not have penalties. It is only suppliers of electricity and gas that will be subject to the penalties in the Palmer amendments, it would seem, and that does not include that particular business.

But I am sure everybody will look at all of the businesses that Mr Abbott went to where he said that they would incur increases in prices like $60,000. It will be interesting to see how that business explains to its customers why it cannot pass on anything like $60,000. These absolutely exaggerated and ridiculous claims were made by the Prime Minister, and the $550 is going to turn out to be another lie. It will be another broken promise. I can tell you, people from around Australia will be sending an invoice to the Prime Minister's office saying, 'Where is my $550, Mr Prime Minister?'

Question agreed to.