Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

He has gone from policies that are dead, buried and cremated to government bills that are suicide notes and now to a promise to repeal the tax cuts and pension increases which is, to quote him, 'written in blood'. This is the sort of language used by the Leader of the Opposition, the whipping up of people in the gallery day after day. The opposition have gone from not only acting hysterically in the chamber, they have now gone to stacking the galleries, including people who were in the Speaker's gallery and therefore signed in by members of parliament in order to be in that gallery today. We know last time that they took some of these demonstrators to lunch in the members and guests dining room prior to their disruption and today we saw their complete lack of respect for our democratic processes, their complete lack of respect for our parliamentary processes.

This is a man who is not a conservative; he is a reactionary. We know that half of the people on that side of the House also support putting a price on carbon. We know that that is the case because they had a vote on it when they all signed up to the CPRS, including the support that was given by the Leader of the Opposition, the weathervane on climate change at that time. We see this constant hysteria. Have a look at the facts with regard to acting on climate change. It is one thing to be a climate sceptic. It is another thing to be a market sceptic and to call yourself a liberal, but this is a market sceptic opposite. Peter Costello has got it right—he does not know about economics, he does not care about economics, this is the old DLP when it comes to economic policy. That is why we see climate scepticism and market scepticism.

To think that the business community do not want the certainty that they have gained this morning through the legislation is simply to show how out of touch the Leader of the Opposition is. He says that he will claw it all back but will he really? He knows that the business community will respond really well to the idea that industry assistance is going to be cut back. He knows that the pensioners of Australia are going to say, 'Thank you for taking back my pension increases.' He knows that there are a million Australians who this morning were taken out of the tax system and, what he would have you believe is, that he is going to put them back in the system because he is going to lower the income tax-free threshold from $18,000 to $6,000. This is someone who would have you believe that he is going to go to an election saying that income taxes will be increased for low- and middle-income earners earning under $90,000. This is an absolute fraud when it comes to climate change, when it comes to economic policy and when it comes to common decency with regard to how debate is conducted in this place. That is why he is the only living Liberal leader who is opposed to a price on carbon. He is isolated from the mainstream of opinion—

Opposition members interjecting—

See this speech in context