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

The member for Page says I'm dreaming. I am dreaming—dreaming that anyone in this government would have the decency to actually let the Australian people in on their dirty little secret that they always planned to have a carbon tax. If this Prime Minister is so arrogant and out of touch—if she actually thinks the Australian people do not care anymore about her fundamental breach of trust—then let us test the theory. Let's have the election. It would give the Australian people a chance to finally have their say on whether or not they want to have a carbon tax, which this Prime Minister explicitly ruled out prior to the last election.

I can assure those opposite that no-one in the community has forgotten that fundamental breach of trust. It goes to the core of every bit of anger that is still there in the community, because they know they simply cannot trust this Prime Minister or anything she says. This is the Prime Minister who said boldly before the last election, 'I rule out a carbon tax,' and, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead'. Of course, the Treasurer himself was complicit in this deceit, because he said that the claims about a carbon tax were 'hysterical'. They were perhaps not as hysterical as his claims about returning the budget to surplus this year—but I have digressed.

I said at the outset that I feel sorry for the true believers in the Australian Labor Party, and I do save my greatest sorrow for those who are offended by the deal the Prime Minister did with the Australian Greens. How they must hang their heads in shame in this place knowing that they are in power with the Australian Greens—getting into bed with the Australian Greens for a grubby political deal must tear at the heart and soul of the true believers in the Australian Labor Party.

Finally, and I suppose in the spirit of the Spring Racing Carnival, I was inspired to review the list of previous Melbourne Cup winners—and I can assure the House that the list of Melbourne Cup winners is a rich treasure trove of metaphors for the Labor cabinet. We had the minister himself—

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