Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

We remember the Prime Minister's infamous speech on the day after the betrayal of the member for Griffith on that dark and stormy night two years ago. The Prime Minister declared that under the member for Griffith the government had lost its way. Standing orders must be suspended to provide the Prime Minister with the opportunity to explain why she has failed to find her way—or indeed any way—on the three issues she nominated as her highest priorities: border protection, climate change and the mining tax. This Prime Minister's version of finding her way is like a dodgy taxi driver taking unwitting passengers on a mystery tour as the cost of the trip goes up and up and up, and it is the Australian taxpayers who are going to be paying the exorbitant fare. As the fare goes through the roof, it is the Australian taxpayers who will pay. Standing orders must be suspended so that we can look at the issue of border protection. This is one of the great policy failures of this generation. The Prime Minister first announced her East Timor solution, denied she had announced East Timor, and recommitted to East Timor, all within the space of just three days. As respected political commentator Laurie Oakes said at the time, her performance was:

… silly and slippery and slimy and shifty in all that and it's a very, very bad start to her prime ministerial career.

Standing orders must be suspended to provide the Prime Minister with an opportunity to explain why she has failed to find her way on border protection, because after that 'silly and slippery and slimy and shifty' start the Prime Minister has gone from bad to worse. The High Court has ruled her Malaysia solution illegal, yet she continues to hold it up as one of her finest policy initiatives. She still has not convinced her coalition partner, the Greens, to back her policy.

Standing orders must be suspended so that we can debate the Prime Minister's more novel approach to finding her way on climate change, with her announcement, first, of a citizen's assembly. I remind members that in her speech announcing that policy the Prime Minister said:

… I will not rush headlong into economy-wide changes that people are not familiar with …

She went on:

I will honour my commitment to building a consensus that is informed by the facts, tested by robust debate and concluded through common sense and open-mindedness.

Therefore, we will have a citizen's assembly! Then, just days before the election came the next step on her pathway, with the infamous statement:

There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.

Does anyone believe that she would be prime minister today if six days before the last election she had stood up and said, 'There will be a carbon tax under a government I lead'?

The Deputy Prime Minister is sitting at the table. He said that the suggestion of Labor introducing a carbon tax was an 'hysterical allegation'. Who is looking hysterical now? It is important to remember that these comments were in direct response to the Leader of the Opposition, who said repeatedly that, 'as night follows day', there would be a carbon tax under this government.

Standing orders must be suspended because there is a mining tax which is already under challenge in the High Court and which has increasingly rubbery foundations. It is a tax with highly doubtful revenue streams, while the government's anticipated revenues have already been spent by the Prime Minister. As the UBS report finds, this mining tax is already dodgy. The figures are already dodgy, and as a result of the mismatch between the tax revenue that the tax is going to come up with and the spending, the government is going to raise the tax or bring it in under other— (Time expired)

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