Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Hansard source

My concern is that the government is not giving the Australian people the chance to have their say in the way that we are having our say through this motion to extend sitting hours. I would encourage members opposite, particularly regional members, whose electorates are at the absolute pointy end of the carbon tax debate to support this. It is their workers in the manufacturing sector and the dairy industry, and the average farm faces a $5,000 increase in its power bill. It is their workers in small business who are at the absolute pointy end of this carbon tax as it cascades through the entire economy.

I invite members opposite, particularly those regional members of parliament, to use this opportunity of extended sitting hours to stand up on behalf of the workers in their electorate. This is an opportunity for those opposite to demonstrate whether they still want to stand up for the workers of Australia or whether they are just going to be the lap-dogs of the Australian Greens. They can use these extended sitting hours to debate the merits of this tax on behalf of the people they were sent here to represent. Don't take orders from the Greens, don't take orders from a Prime Minister who is desperately trying to cobble together her leadership for the future: stand up on behalf of your constituents who are going to be at the pointy end of this carbon tax if it is introduced.

Make no mistake: the greatest threat to jobs in our traditional industries in regional Australia is the policies of the Australian Greens and this carbon tax. When you combine those two things you have an absolute recipe for disaster in our traditional industries right throughout regional Australia. In days gone by, there were members opposite in the Australian Labor Party who would use an opportunity like these extended sitting hours to actually stand up for the workers. I believe that the Labor Party of old was better than this. It was always better than this. This is the opportunity that is being presented to the Labor Party by the House with these additional sitting hours to discuss and debate the carbon tax. We can cut your ties with the Greens and you can start to become the party that actually believes in something. I remember that in the lead-up to the last election the Australian Labor Party believed in working families. We do not seem to hear much discussion about working families anymore. I do encourage those opposite to use these extended sitting hours to do something courageous and, as the Prime Minister invited you to, be on the right side of history and oppose this tax.

I also want to take up the contributions by the member for Higgins and the member for Sturt in relation to whether or not this motion should even be before the House and whether there should even be a debate about a carbon tax in this place at this time. This government does not have a mandate for this tax. In fact, as the member for Sturt pointed out, this government has a mandate for exactly the opposite. The overwhelming majority of members in this place—at least 148 and probably 149 members—campaigned in the last election against a carbon tax. Each of us achieved a mandate to oppose a carbon tax in the lead-up to that election. The only member who actually openly campaigned in support of a carbon tax, to the best of my knowledge, is the member for Melbourne. We all have a mandate; we all have a mandate to oppose this carbon tax. So I take the point from the member for Sturt and the member for Higgins in that regard. We really should not even be debating this motion, because this legislation would not even be before the House, if the government were true to its word and true to the mandate it received, however dubious it may be, from the Australian people.

For my final point I would like to take up a comment the Leader of the House made in his contribution to this debate. He said, 'Those opposite just say no'—

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