Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

that an $18.6 billion increase in education funding is actually a cut. I do not believe any teacher or any member of the public would believe it. We have seen the Australian Education Union break ranks in recent days to say an $18.6 billion increase is an $18.6 billion increase. Go figure! No amount of untruths, half-facts and misleading questions we have seen day after day in this chamber can erase the fact that the Turnbull government is solving the education wars in this country and making sure we have a genuine, needs-based national model.

Nothing could convince Australians that the Labor Party and this Leader of the Opposition are not genuine about their approach to politics more than this Leader of the Opposition coming into this chamber and saying that he is concerned about energy prices. A Labor Party brought in the world's highest carbon tax to Australia—the world's highest carbon tax applied to Australian businesses. Now, we are supposed to believe that, after decades of Labor governments, state and federal, applying policies that have lifted power prices in this country, they care about your power bill. This is the only government that removed the carbon tax. It was this government that removed the carbon tax.

Ms Owens interjecting—

The world's highest carbon tax, the member for Parramatta says. She is criticising our approach We know, if they were ever returned to government, policies like the carbon tax would come back. How do we know that? Well, they are proposing—variously, depending on what day it is—a 50 per cent renewable energy target with no idea about how they would meet that renewable energy target. If the Leader of the Opposition wants to address power prices, if he is ever elected, how is he going to do it when his own government would have a 50 per cent renewable energy target?

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