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

The Australian community was left in huge confusion last week because on Thursday Mr Hunt and Minister Abetz said that they would accept the Palmer United Party amendments in full and legislate them. I said on Friday that there was no way that would happen once the Australian Government Solicitor had a look at them and that is exactly what has happened. Over the weekend, they changed. They have now been incorporated into this government legislation but the community and business are still really confused as to what it means.

So I do not appreciate the minister not being specific about this because I can tell you that out there people who sell clothing, supermarkets, airlines and the general community do not understand who is going to be made, forced, to have a legal obligation to take the price off carbon, who is going to have to report what they do and who is going to be captured by it? My questions are very specific. I would like answers to them but each is quite clear that, if we do this in the normal way where I would ask some questions, the minister would answer and we would go through it, that is not going to happen because filibusters are going to be set up. So I am going to have to go through the questions now and I would like the advisers to provide answers to the minister because I can tell you the answer I had just a minute ago from the minister does not make sense to me. I do not believe it is the right response under the legals and I think we need to know.

The Palmer United Party has gone out there and told the community that these amendments will require every business which puts a price on carbon to take it off or they will be subject to these penalties. In fact, that is not the case, as I read the legislation, and I think the community needs to know. I am going to put a series of specific questions to the minister and I would like specific answers. The first one goes to the cost-of-living estimate. The minister said he stands by the $550 estimate. The Treasury modelling says $250 of that $550 is comprised of food, clothing and rent. Given that my understanding of the legislation is that people who sell food, clothing and rent will have no legal obligation to take the price off carbon under these bills, then the $550 cannot stand. At best it would have to be a $300 estimate if indeed the only people captured under this legislation are, as other government ministers have said, electricity and gas retailers. I would like some specifics here in answer that particular question. I want to go through the rest because there is also a lack of clarity out there, particularly in relation to synthetic greenhouse gases.

Minister Hunt and the Prime Minister went to a business in Canberra called Frozpak and said that, because refrigerant gases were going to triple in price, the cost impact of the carbon price to Frozpak was going to be $60,000 a year. My understanding from reading this legislation is that the ACCC will: have no power at all to, firstly, require Frozpak to show how the savings have been passed on; or, secondly, have no power to fine them. I want to get clarity on this, because Frozpak would be a pretty typical business in the area of refrigeration and so on. I want to know who is captured by that, because my understanding is that it is in relation only to misleading statements and in relation only to price exploitation.

I want to go through some other specific ones. In the definition in 60A an electricity retailer is: 'any other entity who produces electricity in Australia'. That is the definition. I ask the government: who—other than licensed retailers in the states and territories—is the government trying to capture in this catch-all provision? In terms of 'any other entity that produces electricity in Australia', apart from licensed retailers in the states and territories, who is being captured? I ask this because, if a household has a solar panel on their roof—