John Cobb (Calare, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

No, I won't ever be called a greenie. But I have gone to the expense in couple of cases of replacing diesel powered generation to lift that water to solar. Because it is good for the environment? Well, yes, that is in the back of my mind, but mainly because it is more efficient. It is more expensive to put in but once you put it in it works well. That is the type of thing that we as a government will encourage. We will encourage business, farmers, manufacturers to do the right thing rather than belt them over the head and say, 'We'll send you broke if you don't do it; we'll probably send you broke anyway!'

The member for Lingiari also spoke about the choices of parliament. I think what he neglected to mention is that the Australian voter, the Australian nation has already made a choice and that choice is to get rid of the carbon tax. Not simply replace it. The previous Prime Minister said, 'Oh, we are getting rid of it.' He neglected to tell the truth, the whole truth, which is that they were not getting rid of it; they were still going to increase the cost on carbon up to some $30-odd in the very near future.

I know with some people it is a Holy Grail to talk about those things which you cannot hold, to talk about those things which they do not feel particularly affected by. It would seem I am still on the wrong side of the House, but I guess that is an accident of numbers. The people on the other side of the House seem very rarely to be actually dealing with reality in terms of productivity because of what they do. By and large they seem to be staffers of previous ministers—highly educated university students in industrial law or some such, who are then foisted on unions to tell the union what is good them. It was a government that purported to be a socialist government looking after the welfare of workers and others which foisted the carbon tax on people. And it is not just business, small business or otherwise, affected by this; it is everyday people. It is people in their homes, their families—it is everybody. When your country is not making money then it is very hard for those working in it to make money and it is very hard for them to pay their bills. I find it incredible that the member for Lingiari is still talking about, 'We'd rather do something than nothing,' simply to say that we are doing something.

It is very obvious that Australia has made a decision. It is very obvious that our government will follow through on our commitment to stand by that decision and to get rid of a tax which from day one was designed, amongst other things, to redistribute money. I always felt that one of the greatest comments that the previous Prime Minister of Great Britain once said when she said, 'Socialism works quite well until such time as you run out of other people's money to spend.' I think that is, without doubt, the basic difference between the two sides of this House—one wants to redistribute what already exists. Whereas we, on the other hand, want a much bigger pie for everybody to share in. The carbon tax is guaranteed to reduce the pie and certainly to redistribute what it produces.

I could talk about what the previous two prime ministers said they would do, didn't do and one thing and another, but I think that is pretty much consigned to history. They said they would do one thing and did another. I guess that was the story of the last six years. But when the carbon tax is gone it is quite obvious that the average household in Australia will be considerably better off and the cost of living on households will be eased.

I remember the previous government talking vigorously about how they were going to make reparations to householders for the extra costs of the carbon tax—

See this speech in context