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Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Page: 6980

Senator BOYCE (Queensland) (15:26): I am indebted to the Queensland Resources Council for pointing out that tomorrow is Pudding Day. It is the 93rd anniversary of the publication of The Magic Pudding, Norman Lindsay's book—which I think everyone here will know—about a pudding that could be eaten over and over again and magically resume its wholeness. The magic pudding, of course, has come to be emblematic of situations where various vested interests have sought to take a piece out of a growth sector of the economy and believed that the sector would suffer no harm and simply renew and reform itself. How very appropriate, the Queensland Resources Council points out, that the vote on the Gillard government's carbon tax legislation is going to be on Pudding Day.

The so-called Clean Energy Future set of bills is a classic case of magic pudding public policy. The government seem to think that we can go it alone. Despite the protestations of the government there are very small sections in Europe, China and some states of America where carbon tax policies or emissions trading schemes have been introduced, and there is nothing with the sort of cost that is going to be imposed on Australia. There will be no magic pudding when we are talking about the world's biggest carbon tax, a tax that is based on a lie perpetrated by the Prime Minister during the election campaign in 2010.

The great magic pudding will in fact turn out to be a little piece of blancmange on the toes of the Gillard government. The analysis of federal Treasury modelling shows that the carbon pricing scheme will reduce national income by $1 trillion by 2050 and there will be a fall of 0.1 per cent every year from the introduction of the tax until 2050. When this is compounded, we are talking about a 2.8 per cent reduction in GDP. Minister Wong liked to claim that the opposition was running a scare campaign about jobs on the carbon tax. I am sorry, but the opposition has some very, very good company. This is not a scare campaign; this is the truth that the government fail to recognise. Probably they would include Mr Dick Warburton from Manufacturing Australia as one of the scare campaigners. The Rudd government did not think that when it appointed him to run an advisory group on emissions-intensive trade-exposed industries. It did not think that when he was a director of the Reserve Bank. Both positions put him in a position to have a very good view of what will happen when this tax is introduced. He is not a scare campaigner; he is a genuine, committed Australian who wants to act in the national interest.

Let us look also at the National Generators Forum, which makes the remarkable comment—remarkable to this government, anyway—that it will pass on increased costs to consumers. What a bizarre idea. That should not happen, according to the government. The National Generators Forum says that the carbon tax will cost $40 billion extra in the generation of power to the end of 2019-20. The government can compensate all it likes, but there will not be enough.

There is a better way: it is to accept the coalition's direct action plan and support for renewable energy growth. It is to pass the amendments, which will be put to the House of Representatives this evening, to delay any proclamation of this bill until after an election. That would allow this government to find out and be brave about introducing this disastrous tax. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.