Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The member for Melbourne has a lot to say, considering he is the only Green among the 150 members of the House of Representatives. Senator Brown has way too much influence in national politics, given that the Greens make up just 10 of the 226 representatives in the two houses of parliament. The way he and his lot carry on, you would think he was running the place.

The trouble is the Prime Minister and the government are letting them. Just before the 2010 election the recently appointed, not elected, Prime Minister told the Australian public, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' Then, with Senator Brown front and centre, she went back on her word and announced, just five short months and one week later, that there would be a carbon tax. Making the carbon tax double-cross, the Prime Minister said there would be a smooth transition in its implementation. But in the supposed clean energy future of the Prime Minister, Labor and the Greens, carbon will have a $23 a tonne price at the beginning, which will go up and up and up; jobs will be lost overseas when our industries cannot compete with countries in which there is no carbon tax and energy is produced using far more emissions than here; and Mr and Mrs Average will be hit hard every time they buy the family groceries, fill up their car or get their electricity or gas bills. This is all thanks to the Greens and the undemocratic power they seem to be able to wield over a Prime Minister who does anything and says anything merely to keep her job. Meantime, the temperature—

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