Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The people in the electorates around Australia are saying this Prime Minister is guilty of misleading the Australian people in a most fundamental and significant way. If the Prime Minister wanted to claim a shred of integrity, she would take her carbon tax to the Australian people, let them exercise their democratic right and let them judge her on her honesty and on her integrity, because she gave a solemn promise at the last election that there would be no carbon tax under a government she led. By now, the Prime Minister’s promise, on the eve of the election, that there would be no carbon tax under a government she led is indelibly imprinted in the minds of all Australians.

But the Prime Minister misled the country in yet another respect. She promised, when she gave a major climate change speech, that she would not take action on climate change until she had built community consensus. Let me spell this out in case anybody on the other side missed it. The Prime Minister now claims that she spent the whole of the election campaign arguing for a carbon price. Oh no, she did not! I have gone back to the speech that this Prime Minister gave when she launched the government’s climate change policy and it shows there are even greater levels of deceit than we had realised. The Prime Minister gave a speech in July to launch—wait for it—‘Moving forward together on climate change’. This is the speech that promised the now defunct citizens assembly, which was the first broken promise of the post election Labor-Greens government. It is a speech worth reading in detail as it is somewhat different—I say, diplomatically—from her current argument that she made it abundantly clear before the election that she would implement a carbon price after the election. It is worth noting that her only reference to ‘carbon’ and ‘price’ in over 4,700 words was in just one sentence. There is no mention of a carbon tax, but in one sentence she said:

Adopting a market based mechanism to price carbon will transform the way we live and the way we work. Such a major change cannot be made and unmade on the oscillations of the political pendulum.

Obviously, this has nothing to do with the carbon tax that she now seeks to introduce, but it is referring, in a loose kind of way, to some sort of emissions trading scheme. But this is the critical point: the Labor policy was to not proceed with an emissions trading scheme or any other such mechanism without creating bipartisan consensus first. So the various statements she made in that speech that day include—and I will read them into Hansard:

We need national consensus on this vital, long term issue of national interest.

We need consensus among political parties.

But we need consensus in the community even more.

When that community recognition and support exists—

HWP Marino, Nola, MPMs Marino—When.

The Prime Minister said ‘When’:

it means that a choice by a political party to reverse bipartisan support would not destroy the consensus.  Instead the consensus would remain and the political party would be repudiated by the Australian people.

She went on—there is more:

In my view, consensus on this issue should not depend solely on a fragile agreement between political parties.

               …            …            …

… this transformational change must have as its foundation the genuine political support of the community, a consensus that will drive bipartisanship.

Listen to this statement by the Prime Minister:

And if I am wrong, and that group of Australians—

the citizens assembly—

is not persuaded of the case for change then that should be a clear warning bell that our community has not been persuaded … as required about the need for transformational change.

What is absolutely crystal clear is that the Labor election policy—Labor’s solemn promise—was not to proceed with action on climate change, not to proceed with an emissions trading scheme or anything like it without bipartisan and community consensus. And then, on top of that, the Prime Minister promised there would be no carbon tax under a government she led.

This was the Prime Minister before the election. Yet the Prime Minister throughout the community consensus dropped what has become another stinker of a policy, a citizens assembly, and she did her secret deal with the Greens. The Prime Minister has no community consensus, the Prime Minister has no bipartisan support, the Prime Minister has no mandate, the Prime Minister has no credibility on this issue and the Prime Minister’s integrity is in tatters. The coalition will abolish this carbon tax if we are elected.

As for the carbon tax and the impact on the economy, the Chief Executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Peter Anderson, said this:

… is a blow for the competitiveness of Australian business, especially small and medium sized enterprises.

           …         …         …

The extra lead in the saddlebags of Australian business will not reduce overall global emissions, nor will it help save the jobs that will be exported offshore to countries without a carbon scheme.

I think these are rather interesting headlines from today’s Australian: ‘Abbot vows to scrap tax’ and in the line underneath, ‘Labor loses key carbon supporter’. For those who did not see the front page of the Australian today let me read a little from this article. It says:

Tony Abbott has vowed to scrap Julia Gillard’s carbon tax and demanded she seek a mandate for the plan as Labor’s closest business adviser, Heather Ridout, refused to back the Prime Minister’s package.

The article goes on about Julia Gillard being a fraud and then it says:

… Ms Ridout, the Australian Industry Group chief executive, last night declined to back Ms Gillard’s proposal to introduce a fixed carbon price from July 1 next year and an emissions trading scheme three to five years later.

“The jury is very much still out on the introduction of a carbon price in Australia, with industry very concerned about the competitive impacts,” Ms Ridout said.

“In this regard, all options should still be on the table, including that of rollback until the final shape of the government’s proposal is clear.”

The article further quoted Ms Ridout:

“While certainty is important for decision-making around major long-term investments, this certainty should not come at the cost of a loss of competitiveness that sends jobs and emissions offshore or risks the continuity of energy supply.”

This government stands condemned for misleading the Australian public. For trying to take away Australian jobs this government stands condemned.

See this speech in context