Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

Within just a few days the government will be announcing a great big new tax on all Australians. The government themselves say that this is the biggest economic change in history and yet they are waiting until after the rising of the parliament to make this so-called important announcement. They would not answer any questions during this week on the nature of this great big new tax. They wait until everybody has left Canberra so that their announcement cannot be subject to the scrutiny that parliament should be providing. This is no small tax. This will be the biggest carbon tax in the world. It will add to the cost of everything we do every day of our lives. It will make our businesses in this country less competitive. It will cost jobs. Yet the government do not think it is important enough for this to be debated and considered in the federal parliament. This tax will have an enormous impact on all Australians, but its impact in regional areas will be particularly severe because there are higher costs already in regional commun­ities. This tax will add to every single one of them. On top of that, most of the jobs that will be lost in the first round of this tax are in regional communities. So this will have a devastating impact on our nation but, in particular, it will have a devastating effect on people who live outside the capital cities.

This is a carbon tax that the Prime Minister said we would never have under a government she leads.

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