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

I take your admonition, Mr Speaker. What did this Prime Minister say to the Australian people before the election? Putting her hands on her heart she said, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' That is why this suspension cannot wait. She has got to explain herself. What did the Treasurer say to the Australian people before the election? He said that my claim that as sure as night follows day there will be a carbon tax if this government is re-elected was a hysterical exaggeration. It is so hysterical that it is exactly what this government is doing and that is why this suspension of standing orders cannot wait.

This Prime Minister went to the Australian people saying: 'There will not be a carbon tax. There will not be an emissions trading scheme. What there will be is a climate change people's convention.' That is what she said. That is what she took to the Australian people and nothing would happen, she said, until there was a deep and lasting consensus. That is what the Prime Minister took to the Australian people. She reckons she has got a consensus because she has got a deal with the Greens. We had the climate change people's convention on the weekend. It consisted of just five people: two Greens, two Independents and one Labor minister to take the Greens' instructions back to the cabinet. That is no people's convention; that is a fraud on the Australian people and that is why it is important that we suspend standing orders.

I think that it is very important that the actors and the celebrities of this country should have their say. People who live in ecomansions have a right to be heard, they really do. People who are worth $53 million have a right to be heard, but their voice should not be heard ahead of the voice of the ordinary working people of this country. Their voice should not be heard ahead of the forgotten families of this country. It is one of the fundamental principles of our democracy that everyone's voice is equal. You do not give special weight to celebrities, you do not give special weight to people who live half the year in Hollywood, where there is no carbon tax, and you do not give special weight even to former leaders of the Liberal Party. You give weight to the voice of the Australian people. That is why it is so important that we should suspend standing orders, and that is why this matter cannot wait. I say to the Prime Minister, who typically has scuttled out of this chamber, that you will not be able to avoid the voice of the Australian people for that much longer. The Prime Minister should stop thinking that a handful of celebrities somehow represent the voice of the Australian people. She should not be frightened of their voice. If she is so certain that her arguments on climate change and a carbon tax are so right, she should listen to the Australian people. She should give them a chance to say yes or no, as the case may be. She should stop thinking that the only people who count are the people who agree with her.

Why it is so important that we suspend standing orders, and why this matter cannot wait, is that this government's carbon tax will be a massive hit on the standard of living of the forgotten families of our country. It will lead to a 25 per cent increase in power prices, a 6½c a litre increase in private petrol prices, a five per cent increase in grocery prices, a $6,000 increase in the price of a new home and, as we discovered today, at least a $12,000 a year increase in the price of running a farm—and that is at just $20 a tonne. If the government's carbon tax goes ahead, at least 16 coalmines will close, 23,000 jobs will be lost in the mining industry and 45,000 jobs will be lost in the manufacturing industry.

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