Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

This matter of public importance debate is about the dishonesty and incompetence of the Gillard government. It is with deep regret that I come into this parliament to accuse this government of a pattern of conduct which is not straight, which is not honest, which is not upfront with the Australian public. But it is my job to tell the truth to the Australian public. It is my job to tell the truth about this government, and the truth is that this government has hardly given a single commitment, at the election and subsequently, which has turned out to be truthful.

Let me go through a by no means exhaustive list of the deceits and deceptions of this government. There was the carbon tax that was not going to happen before the election but is going to happen after the election. There is the citizens’ assembly that would happen before the election but is not going to happen after the election. There is the East Timor detention centre that was definitely going to happen before the election but which is never going to happen after the election. There were the onshore detention centres that were definitely not happening before the election but which are happening in superabundance since the election. There is an onshore detention centre coming to a disused military barracks near you, Mr Speaker, as a result of this government’s deception.

There was the mining tax, which was totally settled, allegedly, before the election but which has completely unravelled and dissolved after the election. There was the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, which was going to be adopted, sight unseen, before the election but which has completely unravelled after the election. There was the hospital takeover that was so absolutely essential for the good governance of the public hospitals in this country. It was definitely happening before the election but was completely redundant and unnecessary after the election. There was the cash for clunkers scheme that was so important to preserve the environment of this country and indeed the whole planet before the election but which was swiftly dumped after the election. There was the national curriculum that was absolutely—honest to God, hand on heart and hope to die if I tell a lie—going to happen at the start of this year before the election. Now, of course, it is absolutely not going to happen. Then, of course, there was the tax summit that immediately after the election was definitely happening in the first half of this year and was going to debate all of the big issues. Now it is happening in the second half of the year and it is not going to debate any of the big issues. The summit has become a forum, which has become a kind of knitting circle because of the deceit of this government.

The Prime Minister will not put a price on carbon. She will not be honest with the Australian public and put a price on carbon right now. I tell you what, Mr Deputy Speaker: she will pay a price for her consistent deceits. What we have seen from this Prime Minister is a consistent pattern of behaviour. We have seen it since the election, but we saw it before the election. Remember when the member for Sturt was consistently asking questions about the Building the Education Revolution program? He was making it all up! Nothing was going wrong! Everything was perfect—not a single bit of waste; a model of transparency! Now we know that there has scarcely been a more wasteful program in the history of this Commonwealth. This is a Prime Minister who, I regret to say, is addicted to falsehoods. What about the ad campaign? Before the election in 2007, the Prime Minister would tell us that taxpayer funded advertising was an abuse. That is what she said. But soon the printing presses would be rolling and there would be taxpayer funded propaganda galore to defend the Prime Minister’s pre-election lie.

But it does not stop there. She knows so much about China! This is the country which, according to the Prime Minister, is closing down coal-fired power stations left, right and centre, and yet the truth is it is opening a new coal-fired power station every fortnight to feed its voracious appetite for energy. This is the Prime Minister who tells us that as a result of her carbon tax there will be jobs galore. There will be jobs at the corner store thanks to the carbon tax! All sensible economists have concluded that at least two jobs are killed in traditional industries for every so-called green job created as a result of carbon taxes and emissions trading schemes. She tells us on the one hand that the rest of the world is acting on climate change and that we have to catch up. Then she tells us on the other hand that we have to provide an example to the rest of the world so that they might finally act on climate change. Then there is the fantasy island that this Prime Minister is living on when she starts telling the parliament, as she has repeatedly over the last few days, that somehow the coalition wants to hit people for a $30 billion carbon tax to fund our direct action program.

We heard the Prime Minister yesterday boasting in the parliament about all the scripture she knows. Ooh, yes! Didn’t she pay a lot of attention in scripture classes all those years ago! Well, I can remember one passage of scripture. I might not be able to cite scripture to match the Prime Minister, but I do remember ‘thou shalt not bear false witness’—and she has hardly done anything else in this parliament over the last few weeks. Somehow that must be one of the passages of the Bible that she forgot when she made that little stroll from scripture class to the Socialist Forum. Somehow, as she went from God to Marxism, she forgot that bit of the Bible that says ‘thou shalt not bear false witness’. In fact, I am not a doctor, but I think we are in the presence of a condition, a chronic condition: TDD—truth deficit disorder. That is what we have seen from our Prime Minister in recent days. As she comes into this parliament it is almost as if she is trying to earn frequent liar points, as she lies through question time. I have to say, I reckon frequent liar points would be a marketable commodity inside this Labor caucus.

Let me tell the truth about the government’s carbon tax. It is that at $26 a tonne—and that is the price that the Treasury put on carbon for the purposes of modelling the emissions trading scheme—a carbon tax will add $300 to the average family’s power bill—just for starters. At $26 a tonne it will add 6½c to a litre of petrol—just for starters. At $26 a tonne it will add $6,240 to the price of a new house—just for starters. At $30 a tonne it will add $70 to the price of average annual rail transport in Sydney—and that is just for starters. Let me say this: no compensation is adequate for the seismic shock that this carbon tax will deliver to our economy. There will be 126,000 jobs lost in regional Australia, according to Access Economics. There will be 16 coal mines shut and 10,000 jobs lost in the coal industry alone, according to ACIL. There will 24,000 jobs lost in the mining industry more generally, according to Concept Economics, and there will be 45,000 jobs gone in energy-intensive industries, according to Frontier Economics. It is this cost in jobs and this hit on people’s standards of living—the hit on the standard of living of struggling families who are already finding it difficult to cope—which meant that the Prime Minister had to tell an untruth before the election. That is why she had to deceive the Australian people before the election.

I put it to you, Mr Deputy Speaker: does anyone in this chamber or this country honestly believe that the Prime Minister would now be in the Lodge if she had honestly said six days out from the election, ‘Yes, I cannot tell a lie; there will be a carbon tax under the government I lead’? Everything that this Prime Minister does, and everything that this government does, is built on a foundation of falsehood. It is now a fundamentally illegitimate government which simply cannot be trusted by the Australian people.

Let me make a few observations, if I may, in response to some of the claims that we have had from the Prime Minister and her ministers in question time this week. A carbon tax is not an economic reform; a carbon tax, in the absence of comparable action by the rest of the world, is nothing but economic self-harm. It will seriously damage the Australian economy. Above all else, it will export jobs overseas. Under this government, Australia’s latest export is going to be your job: that is the message to the workers of Australia. It will export jobs and it will damage the standard of living of Australians.

Increasing taxes is not economic reform; reducing taxes—that is economic reform. A tax cut based on a tax increase is not a cut: that is a con. A tax cut based on a tax increase is a mirage—it is an absolute mirage, and yet that is what we are being offered by this government.

Let me give some fundamental economics to members opposite: robbing Peter to pay Paul is not tax reform. Robbing Peter to pay Peter is even less tax reform, and what we have from this government is not tax cuts and not even the rumour of tax cuts. If they are fair dinkum about tax cuts, let us see them in the budget. The hole in the heart of the budget that is coming up will be its complete failure to reference (a) a carbon tax or (b) any tax cuts. This is a fraud from a fraudulent government.

I say this to members opposite: if they are serious about tax reform, they know how it is done—or they should know how it is done, because they have the example of the former government to guide them. Serious tax reform is based on a serious and permanent reduction in government spending. Serious tax reform is based on a permanent policy-induced improvement in Australia’s competitive position or in its productivity. That is the foundation of serious tax reform and that is the kind of thing that they would get from this coalition, should we have the chance. And that is the kind of thing that you will never get from this government—all you will get from this government is the kind of consistent deceit on a carbon tax that we have seen over the last few days.

Not only is this government deceptive but it is a government which is increasingly a shambles. We saw that on the weekend: here you had the Prime Minister doing a half-hour interview on tax while, unbeknownst to her, the Deputy Prime Minister was tweeting about the tax summit. Here you had the Prime Minister of this country saying one thing about a no-fly zone while the foreign minister was saying a completely different thing about a no-fly zone. The fact is that they do not know what they are doing—they cannot even talk to each other. This is not a government; it is more like Wollongong council than an adult government of a decent country.

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