Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. The people of Pearce, and all Western Australians, know that the carbon tax is having an ongoing, significant impact on Western Australians and their cost of living. It impacts on pensioners and small business and on the biggest miners. It is a drag on our economy that we simply cannot afford. So I am sure the member for Pearce, like me, was pleasantly surprised to read in the newspaper in Western Australia this morning that the No. 1 candidate on the Western Australian Labor Senate ticket declared boldly, for all the voters of Western Australia to see: 'Labor is scrapping the carbon tax.'

Unfortunately for the lead member of the Senate team in Western Australia, the very same day, just hours after it appeared in the West Australian newspaper, the Western Australian senators voted to keep the carbon tax. So the candidate aspiring to be elected says, 'We will get rid of the carbon tax,' while those who have actually been elected vote against it. That is Labor's strategy; they do one thing in Perth and Western Australia and do a different thing when they get to Canberra—they do the opposite. If Labor is serious about scrapping the tax they could have given credibility to Mr Bullock's claims this very day.

Mr Albanese interjecting—

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