Carbon, mining taxes a huge impost on business and all working Australians

I RECENTLY returned from a wonderful weekend overseas. It’s not often I get to sit down with a 27 year old over a few days and emerge from the discussions thinking, ‘this person should be leading the Business Council of Australia’.

This 27 year old I enjoyed meeting graduated from one of the US’s best schools, as well as the opportunity of attending Eton and Harrow of Britain, and then went on to graduate from one America’s leading business universities. After then working in Asia and Europe, he now leads important power generation projects in his own country, recognising that energy security will be one of the key needs of this century.

And what was I told by this young gentleman? That Australia, with its great resources, should also be a country of entrepreneurs, developing our resources for the benefit of our people and its adjacent neighbours. I was further told that what Australia needed was to reduce its taxation levels, so that better incentives were created for Australians to encourage them to take risks, work hard, plan, persist and strive to do better, and that we should also reduce approvals, permits and licence processes.

Yet what is Australia doing? Not only not lowering its taxes, but bringing in two more very messy taxes – the MRRT and a carbon tax – to seriously undermine Australia’s competitiveness and increase our costs across the board.

The 27 year old was somewhat perplexed by this – and that’s an understatement. I heard more sense talked by this young man over a weekend than we usually hear from our top 100 companies forum, the Business Council of Australia. Why do we need to hear this from overseas when our own business executives should be saying this?

Some mainstream media like to attack me because I speak out against carbon tax. It’s a pity more business executives don’t speak out, because really this problem should have been dropped long ago, after it appeared some people were distorting temperature records.

Let me say how very proud I am of my fellow Australians, who now in the majority of recent polls are also voting against a carbon tax. We are showing we can think for ourselves, not swayed by the ‘global warming’ fear campaign. Even the IPCC states that only 3 per cent of annual CO2 emissions are derived from human activity. So why should Australia burden itself with carbon tax?

Remember when mainstream media was running frightening commentary, frightening young mothers and children, with the idea of global warming due to carbon dioxide. We read and heard about how the oceans would rise, flooding our homes and over years we’d all be scorched due to the increasing heat. Have you noticed now that we don’t hear much any more about ‘global warming’? The theme has now changed to ‘climate change’ due to carbon dioxide.

Let’s consider climate change – the world’s climate has constantly changed and will continue to do so, no matter how many coal-fired power stations, or coal-reliant steel industries, or other secondary processing industries are closed down; yes, those industries that employ blue-collar workers.

Before the world had any power stations and steel mills and manufacturing, the world went through periods of ice ages and periods of global warming. There will always be changes that affect our climate, even if we stop all coal-fired power stations, steel mills and other manufacturing and put all their employees out of work and change our lifestyles. Further, there will always be geothermal activity, such as volcanos that spew out heat and ash that affect climate.

Frankly there’s still doubt in the scientific community that adding more carbon dioxide to the air will have any significant effect on climate change, and especially not from a relatively small country like Australia.

However, the economic impact on Australians if a carbon tax or similar and the MRRT were imposed on thermal coal would be considerable. Electricity costs would go up, and it doesn’t stop there; almost every item that you can think of requires electricity at one stage or another in its production, storage or distribution.

It is not just the rich mining companies that would be affected but every man, woman and child in Australia. And those most affected will be the low to medium income earners, who are the majority of people in Australia. And blue-collar workers will be hit, as their jobs in steel mills, power stations and manufacturing disappear. The sooner we can, as a majority, let our politicians know that Australians are fed up of wasting taxpayers’ money on this and do not want an MRRT on thermal coal (at least) or carbon tax, the better.

Let’s take a quick look at some estimates from third party sources – that our government and those on the gravy train are not telling us.

The carbon tax, if imposed at a rate lower than what the Greens actually advocate, will cost:

• 126,000 jobs in regional Australia according to Access Economics;

• 10,000 jobs and close down 16 coalmines according to ACIL economic consultancy;

• 24,000 jobs in other parts of mining according to Concept Economics; and

• 45,000 jobs in other energy intensive industries.

The Housing Industry Association tells us construction of a standard house is responsible for 240 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. If the tax is calculated at $26 per tonne, that is $6,240 put on the price of your average family home, and why?

It is not going to stop the Chinese and the Indians from continuing to emit carbon dioxide on their own account. They understand that you cannot raise people’s standard of living without also raising their energy consumption.

Do we really want to have more taxes, so that we can all be ‘compensated’ for our losses due to the carbon tax and/or MRRT on thermal coal? How many bureaucrats would be required for such nonsense? And who’s going to pay additionally for all the lost jobs? Taxpayers.

Families and industries need to be told that carbon tax and the MRRT on thermal coal have been abandoned, so that we can all stop worrying about this issue and get on with our productive lives, and stop adding this burden to our national debt.

But to get to this position we must support organisations with the guts to stand up on these important issues. We can’t wait any longer for Australia’s business ‘leaders’ to finally stand up on this issue. If we don’t stand up, we run the risk of seeing the consequences of the non-action in Australia – I sincerely hope we don’t. The sooner this impost – the carbon tax and MRRT – is gone the sooner taxpayers’ money stops being wasted on these endeavours, the easier it will be to raise finance for investment in Australia.

I would like to see us take steps to become an increasingly prosperous country with rising standards of living; a country we can be proud of, a country where the best in the world want to come and bring their experience and expertise and funds, and a country setting aside enough to be able to look after its increasingly elderly population, and to look after those who defend our country and be able to spend more to defend our country. We cannot forget that our population is rapidly increasing its numbers of elderly citizens, which means there will be less and less in the working proportion of our population, with more elderly citizens to support. Just look at our hospitals, are they being prepared for this? No, they are already inadequate. Just look at our elderly citizens homes – are they being prepared for this? No, they are also already inadequate. Pensions for our elderly citizens? No, they are inadequate too. How will we be able to afford more?

This country can afford more if it prepares now and casts off messy taxes like the MRRT and carbon tax, slashes time and money wasting approvals, permits and licences to free up resources to enable greater revenue, and is not prevented from enabling the greater use of guest labour.

If greater use of guest labour is not permitted, the pressure on employee salaries will cause further difficulties not only for the mining and infrastructure industries, but also for industries that then lose employees, such as education, pastoral and hospitality, as occurred in the last resource boom.

Guest labour for pre-construction and construction is essential, particularly in remote areas.

Further unskilled or semi-skilled guest workers would be helpful in other areas of need in Australia – be it in our struggling agricultural and pastoral industry, particularly after fire and flood damages, senior citizens’ homes, carers for disabled and senior citizens, in our hospitals and perhaps other designated areas. Who hasn’t experienced family members in hospitals or senior citizens homes and recognised they need better care? Why not let guest labour in on a non-permanent basis to help? Our nurses for instance are trained for nursing and in many hospitals where they are short staffed, unskilled guest workers could do jobs nurses do but shouldn’t need to, like making hospital beds, emptying rubbish bins, making teas and coffees (including for visitors), looking after flower arrangements and so on, to assist nurses and free up their time for what they are trained to do and to save them being overtired as currently occurs too often.

Adequate guest labour on a non-permanent immigration basis would not only provide needed assistance in Australia, but also provide necessary assistance to people overseas desperate for work.

On humanitarian grounds alone, Australia should allow both Indians and Asians to work as guest workers in Australia, so that they can send their money home, to feed their families, clothe them and provide medication and medical care and education – essentials they can’t have without work being available for them. If you’ve visited the poor in such countries, as I have, you would very quickly see the justification, indeed overwhelming need, for such humanitarian approach.

I would also urge we urgently consider an idea raised by WA Business News editor at large, Mark Pownall (March 17), reminding us of our need to help our friends in Japan, perhaps by letting them work in Australia for a year or two on a temporary guest labour basis. Japanese are usually well skilled and well educated, and Australia could offer them temporary homes and work in their months of need.

As we sit in warm Australia, we tend to forget how cold it is in March in northern Japan, especially for those without electricity or even homes.

• This is an edited extract from speech notes used by Gina Rinehart, who chairs iron ore miner Hancock Prospecting and Australians for Northern Development and Economic Vision (ANDEV).