Mr. Speaker, throughout the day, I have been hearing references to Australia, which is a country I know well as my parents were born there and it is the place where my cousins live. Email is a fantastic thing because I get to ask them in real time about what happened after carbon pricing was removed in Australia.
My cousins in Victoria will tell us that electricity prices tripled the first year it was gone because the price on coal was removed. The price on coal, which is largely exported to China, was being used to subsidize electricity in Australia for clean energy. When the carbon price was removed, it opened up the coal mines, which was not good for the environment but also tripled the price of electricity.
For those who are really concerned about what the cost of gasoline is in Australia, they might want to check what happened with the gasoline prices there. At the point of the carbon tax being in place, gasoline was going for $1 a litre in Australia. Today it is $1.88 a litre. Why? Because the private market dictates the price, not government taxes. It is the market price for fuel that is the issue.
The trouble in Australia is that it is losing port capacity because of erosion, due to massive floods caused by climate change. Climate change has eroded the Australians' capacity to import cheap energy and so energy prices are going up.
If the members opposite really want to follow Australia's example, could they explain why farmers should pay $1.88 for a litre of gasoline? Could they explain why coal in manufacturing is the preferred method of energy generation? Could they please explain why they want to triple the price of electricity?