No Carbon Tax Rally - Port Macquarie
15th May, 2011
It is great to be in Port Macquarie this afternoon and what a magnificent day it is.Do we need a new tax to change the climate when we can live in wonderful places like this?
Ladies and gentleman, this new tax is not just some fantasy. This is not just some weird idea of the Greens and others. It is something that could actively happen here and across our country. Just last week in the Federal Parliament, a motion was carried in the House of Representatives supporting a carbon tax. It was carried, because the Labor party voted for it (not a surprise), the Greens voted for it (not a surprise), but the Independents, Mr Oakeshott and Mr Windsor also voted for it.
So it matters in this area because your local member will have it within his power, to deliver this great big new tax to all Australians. Labor will now have the numbers in the Senate from the first of July, they've got the Greens with them. The only reason why the Greens would not vote with Labor for a tax like this is because it's not high enough, they want it even tougher. While there is anything left standing or anybody left to pay it, they'll just want it to be higher and higher.
So now we have to deal with this in the House of Representatives and that's where the numbers are very critically balanced.
You all know, that the Prime Minister lied to you. She lied. She said before the election there would be no carbon tax under her. So we went to the last election with every member of the ALP, every member of The Nationals, every member of the Liberal party promising to you that they would not deliver a carbon tax. We haven't changed, we haven't changed, but some of them have.
In a deceitful piece of betrayal, the Prime Minister out in her courtyard lead by the Greens with a somewhat sheepish Mr Oakeshot alongside promised they would deliver this tax and deliver it quickly. And the Prime Minister has not only been dishonest in what she said in relation to the clear promise that there would be no tax, she also said that she would first get a community consensus for the carbon tax.
Well there is a community consensus, the polls are showing 60-70% are against it.
We have a consensus, the message is clear - we don't want the tax. No carbon tax! No carbon tax!
We've got good reasons for not wanting a carbon tax and there are lots of them. Firstly, it will hurt us all. It will hurt all families. Electricity prices go up by as much as $300 ($500 a year in NSW) alone. Petrol goes up 6.5 cents a litre, plus GST. Everything that you buy will be more expensive and particularly for those people living in regional areas. We don't have a choice. We can't get on the next electric train to go to work. If we want to take our kids to school we have to do it by car. If we want to go to a doctor, we have to do it by car.
Yet the Government wants us to change our behaviour so we don't do those sorts of things. Do they really expect us to sell our house and buy one somewhere near where we work, or near the hospital or near the school? You can't do that, but they want us to change our behaviour so that we put less CO2 gases into the atmosphere. But in reality they know we can't do that, we simply have to pay the tax.
A 6.5 cents a litre tax, results from there being a $26 a tonne carbon price. That would be the highest carbon tax anywhere in the world.
Even Europeans only have a $22 tax and they exempt 164 sectors from paying it altogether. In spite of what Julia Gillard tells you, we are not the only country in the world without a carbon tax. Very few have one. And those states in the US that have a carbon tax or something like it, their rate is currently $1.90. But we are proposing to have a $26 tax and that delivers a 6.5 cent litre change in fuel prices.
Canada is walking away from it and so are most other places around the world. What about China, the country we were told we've got to match. They are one of the world's greatest polluters.
The Government has been simply dishonest. The Prime Minister has not been dishonest with you once, but dishonest with you time and time and time again.
Even if the Chinese keep the promise they made in Copenhagen about CO2 reductions, they will still increase their emissions by nearly 500 percent. They're not reducing them their increasing them. They're building more coal fired power stations. Just the other day a new contract was signed in Queensland which will deliver enough coal into China to actually build as many power stations as we have in the whole of Queensland. And they are building more and more and more. They are putting up some wind generators, but not nearly as much as the coal fired power stations that they are intending to build. The Chinese in fact are going to be responsible for 90% of the growth in coal fired power stations in the years ahead. The Prime Minister isn't telling you the truth about this. We are not alone.
Now I've never seen a tax yet that changes the climate or lowers a sea level. Greenland isn't frozen because they have more taxes than anybody else. The reality is that this is a tax about raising revenue like all the rest. She just wants more money. She says she is going to compensate you for a tax but who would believe her. If she is really going to do that, we've actually got no reason to change our behaviour anyhow. Why bother turning your air-conditioning off, why bother stop driving your car, Julia Gillard's going to give you some more money, a bigger pension. Who would believe her?
Ladies and gentleman, this tax simply won't work. It will do nothing to change the climate. Australians, with our small number of people, cannot change the global climate ourselves. It's simply a nonsense. But what it will do is hurt every Australian family. We are all going to have to pay a lot more. It will mean we will lose jobs. Access Economics says at least 120,000 - because people will do their manufacturing in other parts of the world. They won't provide the services in Australia. They won't provide the jobs here, they'll go somewhere that doesn't have a tax like this. And when there are new investments to be made, they will be made in countries that do not have a tax like this. It will just cost us. It will cost us jobs, it will cost us our quality of life - but it will do nothing whatsoever to change the temperature of the planet.
Well what do we do about it, that's the key question. What do we do about it?
The reality is that The Nationals have been opposed to a carbon tax, the CPRS right from the very beginning. We were the first to say 'No'. The Liberals followed us a little later and eventually even the Labor party abandoned their own CPRS - they slashed the head off their Prime Minister because he dared to suggest it. Now Prime Minister Gillard comes around and does exactly the same thing!
We didn't invent the motor car because we taxed horses.
You will not produce a better environment by putting a tax on people doing the things they need to do.
So what we have got to do, what has got to happen in this country if we want Julia Gillard to be an honest woman, (and we want her to be honest), she needs to tell us what is in her carbon tax and then ask the people whether they want it. She has no mandate. She wants one and she got to get one. The only way she's going to get a mandate it is by having another election.
