Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, standing orders should be suspended because six days before the last election, this Prime Minister stood up and said, hand on heart, to the Australian people: 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead,' and she needs to give an explanation. Why did she mislead the Australian public six days before the last election? Why did she mislead the Australian public to win votes? Why, having scrambled back into the Lodge, did she do the exact opposite of what she had promised before the last election the Australian public that she would do? This is a Prime Minister who simply cannot be trusted, and standing orders should be suspended so that this Prime Minister can give an explanation of why now she will not even mention the carbon tax. It is like the anniversary that she does not want to mention. This is the tax—and this is the anniversary—that dare not speak its name. That is why standing orders must be suspended, because this is a Prime Minister and a government that are in denial. The Prime Minister is clearly in denial about the impact of the carbon tax on the aluminium industry. Her own modelling shows that there will be a 61 per cent decline in aluminium production under the carbon tax, and she tries to pretend that the workers at Point Henry could not be happier about the carbon tax, that they love the carbon tax, that the last thing they are concerned about is the carbon tax. Well, she needs to explain why she wants to put in place a government policy that will all but destroy the aluminium industry in this country. We have the minister for climate change constantly telling us that the coal industry could not be happier about the carbon tax and they love the carbon tax—even though the whole point of a carbon tax is to stop the use of coal. If it does not stop the use of coal what is the point? Coal is what is producing the emissions which the carbon tax is designed to limit, and the government's own modelling shows that, absent carbon capture and storage, the coal industry will go from 70 per cent of electricity production down to 10 per cent. It spells the death of the coal industry as we know it.

This is a rotten Prime Minister leading a rotten government. This is why standing orders ought to be suspended. We know that the faceless men are about to change the leader of the Labor Party but they cannot change the government; only the Australian people can do that, and, boy, are they waiting for that day! (Time expired)

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