Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

There was no stunning beforehand. It was a very savage killing, perhaps even worse than some of the worst examples that we have seen over the past couple of months. But, that notwithstanding, once again we saw the resolute earnestness of this new Prime Minister as she stood there and wrung her hands and said: 'I've got a great idea for the future. We'll have a people's congress on climate change. We'll get the best and the brightest in the country'—with visions of 2020 haunting us still. 'We'll get the best people in the country together and we'll develop a people's congress on how to deal with climate change.' But, oops, we have heard nothing about it since the election. This Prime Minister said, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead' six days out from the federal election. Oops! The Labor Party have turned their backs on that as well. The Prime Minister also said, 'I can stop the boats, and I'll do it by getting a regional solution in East Timor.' That then became a regional solution in Papua New Guinea, which has now become the regional solution in Malaysia.

The Labor Party have turned their backs every step of the way, every single day, on the policies that they put forward. That is the reason the Australian people look at the Prime Minister and the Australian Labor Party and say: 'We have no confidence in your ability to lead. We have no confidence in what you say. We have no confidence in the direction in which you are going because, frankly, you are going around in circles. And we have no confidence whatsoever in your ability to take Australia forward with confid­ence into the future.' That is the reason there is crisis of confidence in this country when it comes to the direction and the policies of the Australian Labor Party.

This is the worst Labor government that this country has seen since before Whitlam. This is the worst Labor Party, in conjunction with the Greens, that has been inflicted on the Australian people, because this is a government that stands for nothing and believes in nothing. This is a government whose policies on the one hand claim to be full of promise but on the other—when we see leaked copies of their talking points—are actually all about neglect, fear, scare mongering and doing what they can to make sure that they berate the Australian people into backing their policies.

But the reality is that the Australian people know all about this government. They have got their measure; they have got their mark. They know that this Prime Minister is a complete fraud when it comes to policies and the words that she utters. That is the reason why, when it comes to this policy, the Australian people also know that Labor's great big new carbon tax will do nothing to make our environment better. When questions have been put to the Labor Party such as, 'If the parliament were to roll over and accept every single policy proposal that the Labor Party put forward, what impact would that have on Australia's environment and how quickly would that make a difference to saving the reef or the rainforests?' of course we get no answers. We get no answers because we only contribute 1.5 per cent of global emissions. So, even if we were to jeopardise our economic future by adopting this ridiculous new carbon tax that the Labor Party is implementing, it will do nothing to change the global climate and that in turn will do nothing to make sure that, like Labor's talking points, there are fewer bushfires, fewer droughts, fewer floods and better and more fertile land. That is precisely the reason that people laugh now when the Australian Labor Party claim to be sincere.

Less than 24 hours ago we saw the Treasurer of this country claim that, through the carbon tax, Australia would be taxing 'up to 1,000 companies' and then try to justify the inclusion of those words 'up to' as though that somehow demonstrated that it was okay that that figure had now been halved. In the same way, we could say that Australia's debt level under the Labor Party is now up to $200 billion. Sure, it might actually be $107 billion but $200 billion is near enough! The reality is that this Treasurer has no idea in which policy direction this country is going, and the reason for that is that the Prime Minister herself has no idea about the policy direction of this government.

Although there might be a little bit of money splashing around, it has very little to do with the economic management of this government—rather, it is because of China. Although there might be a little bit of money splashing around in the Australian economy than there is elsewhere, there is no confid­ence in this government, no confidence in the policies of this government, no confid­ence in the direction of this Prime Minister and fundamentally no confidence in the Australian Labor Party to do anything to help lead this country into a better future. (Time expired)

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