Professor Garnaut had the honesty to say what Julia Gillard won't.

 

He said: "Australian households will ultimately bear the full cost of a carbon price" and that "for households, carbon pricing will raise the price of electricity".

 

Families across NSW are going to be hit hard by Labor's carbon tax.

 

Just for starters, a carbon tax at $26 a tonne would raise power bills by $500 a year. It will add 6 1/2c a litre to petrol prices and will raise grocery prices by 5 per cent.

 

A carbon tax may start between $20 and $30 a tonne but that won't be where it finishes.

 

We know that it's the Greens who are calling the shots in this Government and the Greens say that the carbon tax has to be $40 a tonne to drive the change from coal to gas and would have to reach $100 to drive change from fossil fuels to renewables. That means massive and ongoing increases in the cost of power, petrol and groceries.

 

The Prime Minister's statements on compensation are as believable as her promise six days prior to the election that "there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead".

 

The carbon tax will be permanent, but the compensation will be temporary and every year the tax will just go up and up and up.

 

For some Australians the only compensation they will receive will be a dole cheque.

 

A go-it-alone carbon tax will be an act of self-harm to local industries. Imposing greater costs on manufacturers does not mean we will use less steel, aluminium, glass or plastic in Australia.

 

These things will just be imported from other countries meaning both jobs and emissions go offshore – for absolutely no environmental gain.

 

Labor Members in the Hunter, Illawarra and western Sydney know deep down that their political lives are at stake over the carbon tax.

 

In the Illawarra for instance, there are 5000 workers at BlueScope Steel alone and Julia Gillard's carbon tax will seriously undermine the profitability of the BlueScope plant, threaten its long-term viability and the economic future of the region.

 

Unions and Labor MPs need to stop making excuses for a bad government and stand up for the jobs and livelihoods of their constituents and members.

 

The truth about the carbon tax is that it will not clean up the environment but it will clean out your wallet and it will destroy jobs.

 

The Coalition has a better way.

 

We have a strong and effective policy to deal with climate change and meet our bipartisan target of reducing emissions by 5 per cent by 2020.

 

We will spend about a billion dollars a year from savings in the budget to deliver more trees, better soil and smarter technology.

 

That's the intelligent way of dealing with climate change.

 

The dumb way is to impose a great big new tax on jobs and on every Australian's standard of living.

 

2 June 2011