Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Warringah moving immediately:

That this House calls on the Prime Minister to speak for ten minutes and to apologise for misleading the Australian people five days before the last election when she said "there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead."

Standing orders must be suspended because this is the second anniversary of the big lie.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition will withdraw.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw. This is this second anniversary of that massive betrayal, that complete breach of faith with the Australian people. Since then, we have had 731 days of deceit—731 days of deception—from this Prime Minister.

We had the Prime Minister in the House today trying to pretend that the carbon tax was not going to do any real harm to anyone—that there would not even be a real increase in the price of power. But if the carbon tax was so harmless, why wasn't she honest enough to be up-front with the Australian people before the last election? That is why standing orders must be suspended. What we have seen in the House today from the Prime Minister is all this talk about what the coalition said in 2007. Has she noticed that we did not win the election in 2007? Has the Prime Minister noticed that the coalition went into the election in 2007 saying 'subject to the world taking similar action'? In fact, what we have had from this government—and this is why standing orders should be suspended—is a double deception. We have had a double betrayal. They went to the 2007 election promising an emissions trading scheme, and they did not deliver it. They went to the 2010 election promising that there would be no carbon tax, and they did deliver it. There has been a double deception from this Prime Minister. The phrase, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead,' echoes around this chamber and rings around this country—and doesn't it haunt this Prime Minister! This is a Prime Minister who is too frightened to stay in the chamber and hear the deception that she uttered mentioned again in this chamber.

Every time prices rise in this country, the consumers of this country think 'carbon tax', and every time this Prime Minister makes a statement on any subject at all the voters of this country are reminded of her fundamental betrayal and deception before the last election. We can have all the brazen bluster that this parliament sees so often from the Prime Minister, we can have all the shameless effrontery that this parliament sees from the Prime Minister, but one thing we never hear from this Prime Minister is that little word 'sorry'—the apology that is the least she owes the Australian people after the deception that she practised on them before the last election. She says today, 'If the coalition wins the election, they'll keep the carbon tax.' Then we have the minister for families saying, 'We'll claw it back.' They cannot even get their talking points right. That is how deceptive this government is.

Just imagine—and this is why standing orders should be suspended—that the Prime Minister had been honest. Just imagine that the Prime Minister had gone to the Australian people and said straight up-front, five days before the election, 'Yes, there will be a carbon tax under the government I lead.' Does anybody imagine that she would still be the Prime Minister of this country? What this Prime Minister did was say one thing before the election to win votes and then do the opposite in a squalid, shameful deal with the Greens to stay in the Lodge. Shame, Prime Minister, shame! The least you could do is have the guts to sit in this parliament and listen to this debate rather than scurry off yet again to seek refuge in the whip's office as you do time and time again.

This is not just a broken promise; this is a fundamental breach of trust. This is not just a failure to deliver on the part of the government; this is a failure to understand. It is proof that the Prime Minister and the government just do not get it. We had the Prime Minister stand up in this parliament in 2006 and say in very simple language, 'Labor is the party of truth-telling.' But it is not any more, if it ever was—and it certainly cannot be the party of truth-telling as long as this person leads it. As long as the current Prime Minister leads the Labor Party, they can never be the party of truth-telling. We had the Treasurer up there auditioning in the Prime Minister's week off—he was even singing to us about 'this gun's for hire'—because he knows that this government is doomed as long as it is led by someone whose very word cannot be trusted by the Australian people.

Let's just examine what this Prime Minister did when it came to being truthful about the carbon tax. First of all, she forced the former Prime Minister, the member for Griffith, to abandon his campaign for an emissions trading scheme. We know that the current Prime Minister along with the current Treasurer forced the former Prime Minister to betray his own words and to dump the emissions trading scheme. Then, during the election campaign, the Prime Minister said not only would there not be an emissions trading scheme; there would be a people's convention. Remember that—the people's convention? Nothing at all would happen until this citizens' assembly, this people's convention, had achieved a deep and lasting consensus.

Finally, after I had said on at least 15 separate occasions that as sure as night follows day if this government were re-elected there would be a carbon tax, the Treasurer came out and said, 'That's a hysterical allegation,' and that obviously was not enough to persuade the public. So there was the Prime Minister five days before the election, in all her glory, saying: 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' This was a cold-blooded, deliberate deception of the Australian people.

This is a Prime Minister who has form when it comes to betrayal. She betrayed the former Prime Minister over the prime ministership; she betrayed the member for Denison over poker machine reform; she betrayed the member for Scullin over the speakership; and then there was the ultimate betrayal of the Australian people over a carbon tax. This is the deception that haunts this Prime Minister. This is the deception that will haunt her to a political grave. This is the deception that will dog this government to the next election. Make no mistake—the next election will be not only a referendum on the carbon tax; it will also be a referendum on prime ministers who do not tell the truth.

When I say, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead,' I can be believed. On day 1 of an incoming government, the public servants will get their instruction. On day 1 of a new parliament, the legislation to repeal the carbon tax will be introduced. We will keep our commitments. Just because we have a Prime Minister now who does not keep her commitments—who has truth deficit disorder—she should never assume other people are like that. I am different. When I say something, I mean it. I do not sell my soul to minor parties the way this Prime Minister has. (Time expired)

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. Standing orders should be suspended and the Prime Minister given 10 minutes to come into the House and apologise to the people of Australia. If she does not and if the Labor Party does not support this motion then they will be confirming that we have the most brazen Prime Minister in Australia's history. This Prime Minister brazenly said before the last election, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' Having been elected, she brazenly broke that promise in order to grasp at power to get the Greens to support the Labor Party to be in government. She then brazenly said at the time that she was doing just what John Howard had done with the goods and services tax. She brazenly forgot in fact that John Howard took the GST to an election and got a mandate from the Australian people to introduce the goods and services tax. At the time she broke her promise not to introduce a carbon tax, she brazenly said that it was not a tax. It took Laurie Oakes to tease out of her finally, for her finally to admit, that it was in fact what everyone knew it to be—a carbon tax and another broken promise.

She brazenly said in question time yesterday that the whole point of the carbon tax was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions when in fact she had said on 22 February last year:

I want to be very clear with Australians about what pricing carbon does: it has price impacts. It is meant to. That is the whole point.

So in February last year she was telling the truth about the carbon tax—a nice change. She was at least telling the Australian people that the whole point of the carbon tax was to increase their electricity prices. And aren't we seeing that happen? Brazenly yesterday in question time she said that it was about reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Every day in question time, she uses sophistry of the English language to avoid answering specific questions and she did so again today when asked whether she supported increasing or decreasing electricity prices and whether that was the purpose of the carbon tax.

In fact, even the assertion that the whole point of the carbon tax is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is not true, because by 2020 on the government's own modelling greenhouse gas emissions will increase by eight per cent. She also brazenly says that households will be compensated—that nine out of 10 households will be compensated. What she does not tell people is that three million households in Australia will be worse off. Three million Australian families will struggle even more under cost-of-living pressures than they already are—on the government's own modelling, on the government's own figures.

Worst of all, she says brazenly to the Australian people that if the coalition wins the next election Labor will reject our attempt to repeal the carbon tax. She has already locked the Labor Party in to ignoring the will of the Australian people. The next election will be a referendum on the carbon tax and, if the coalition should be fortunate enough to win it, we will immediately introduce legislation to repeal it and the House will sit until it is done. Yet, the Prime Minister has already ruled out the possibility that Labor will listen to the will of the Australian people. This Prime Minister, leading Labor as she is, is leading a group of Labor MPs who are like docile sheep. Standing orders should be suspended, because the docile sheep of the parliamentary Labor Party are being led by this Prime Minister into the slaughterhouse, abattoir and charnel house that will be the next federal election if they seriously take to the next election this Prime Minister who cannot be trusted and the policy to stop our repeal of the carbon tax.

The Australian people simply will not tolerate it. It is time that the parliamentary Labor Party recognised the extraordinary damage that this Prime Minister is doing to the Labor Party brand and the Labor Party tradition and woke up to the fact that none of you can believe anything she says. The Australian people know it. The Australian people have stopped listening. It is time that the Labor Party did the right thing and put the interests of the Australian people first and not the interests of this unworthy Prime Minister.

On the second anniversary of the Prime Minister's great lie—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member will withdraw.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw. She should be condemned! (Time expired)

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me state a couple of important facts at the outset. The policy of pricing carbon is the right policy for the future of this country; the second fact is that the Leader of the Opposition, who thinks he has got the next election in the bag—it is in the back pocket—cannot and will not repeal it. In fact, that claim is the most fraudulent claim of his mendacious and deceitful claims throughout this campaign.

Mr Pyne interjecting—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister will resume his seat. I advise the Manager of Opposition Business that, if he continues to use that word, I will throw him from the chamber.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. With great respect, it is a completely false assertion that the minister is making and it could not be orderly.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. The minister has the call.

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let us just track over a little bit of the history to put some of this in context, and particularly this most mendacious and deceitful campaign that has been run by the Leader of the Opposition against carbon pricing, a measure which is in our economic and environmental national interest. Five years ago John Howard, the Leader of the Liberal Party, the Prime Minister of this country—this is an important anniversary—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop interjecting—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Mackellar is warned!

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Five years ago, as a member of cabinet, John Howard committed this country to pricing carbon through an emissions trading scheme supported by the current Leader of the Opposition. In 2009, under Malcolm Turnbull's leadership, the member for Wentworth's leadership of the Liberal Party, the government and the coalition agreed on an emissions trading scheme to introduce a price on carbon in this country. If you are talking about deceit, if you are talking about integrity, if you are talking about betrayal—all issues raised by the Leader of the Opposition—then they rest right over there.

It was in our national interest to pass that legislation at that time. It was agreed to by both major political parties in this country as being in our national interest, and the Leader of the Opposition betrayed his then leader over that policy issue. In a gutless act of political opportunism—he won by one vote—he defeated Malcolm Turnbull, the Leader of the Liberal Party, over that particular issue. Ever since, what we have seen has been deceit, fraud and mendacity with claim after claim after claim on this issue—deceit in relation to electricity prices and deceit in relation to the impact of bringing a carbon price into the economy—culminating in that most deceitful of claims that the Leader of the Opposition intends to repeal this particular measure which is in our interest.

Dr Jensen interjecting—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, the member for Tangney!

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This country has an obligation internationally to play a fair part in efforts to tackle climate change and cut greenhouse gas emissions. We will have obligations to do so—to cut in absolute terms our emissions from 2020—and there are supposedly bipartisan pledges to cut emissions through to 2020 by at least five per cent on the levels of 2000.

Dr Jensen interjecting—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Tangney is warned!

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition has gone around attacking scientists and economists and making false claims—claim after claim. He said hundreds of thousands of jobs will go. He stood before pensioners and lied to them about the impact of carbon pricing—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will withdraw.

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw. He stood in front of pensioners—in one of the most gutless things you could ever do—terrifying them, with no sound basis for doing so. And now that the carbon price has been in for six weeks, what are we finding? Every single claim is wrong. The destruction of the coal industry—wrong, false and deceitful. The loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs—wrong, false and deceitful. The impact on electricity prices—wrong, false and deceitful. The Leader of the Opposition sat there and watched electricity prices go up by an average of 50 per cent over the last three years and another eight or nine per cent due to network costs in each jurisdiction around the country this year—and that is not the end of the world.

They falsely attribute electricity price increases all to carbon. Every single claim that the Leader of the Opposition has made in relation to this issue is false, deceitful and cannot be relied upon. It is the most pure political opportunism that you could possibly imagine. Every living Liberal Party leader, including the member for Warringah, has supported carbon pricing. It is right for this country and that is why the Leader of the Opposition, who thinks he has got the next election in the bag, cannot and will not repeal it—and that is the most fraudulent claim of his of all.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There has been a lot of discussion today about history. It has been discussed here today that, two years ago, the Prime Minister made a certain comment in the run-up to the election. As most of us would be aware, the Prime Minister did not win the election; this is a hung parliament.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You might learn something from a little bit of history here. You might be a little bit interested.

Opposition members interjecting—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for New England has the right to be heard.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the Leader of the Opposition would know very well, as the Prime Minister would know very well and, for that matter, as the Deputy Prime Minister would know, the decision to do something about climate change—whether it be through an emissions trading scheme, a carbon pricing arrangement or a price on carbon—was a condition of the formation of government.

The Leader of the Opposition knows that very well, because on a number of occasions he actually begged for the job. You have never denied it, Tony, and you will not. He begged for the job and he made the point, not only to me but to others in that negotiating period, that he would do anything to get that job. You would well remember—and your colleagues should be aware—that the only codicil that you put on that was: 'I will do anything, Tony, to get this job; the only thing I wouldn't do is sell my arse.'

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I hesitate to take a point of order on the member for New England, but he does have to at least make some attempt to talk to the suspension of standing orders rather than this personal—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. Perhaps everybody should read Hansard about personal, vexatious issues. The member for New England has the call and must refer to the issue before the chair, which is the suspension.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition is well aware of the discussions that were held. It was a condition of the formation of government. He was prepared to do anything, if in fact he had been called upon.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not a carbon tax!

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If he had been asked to put in place an emissions trading scheme—or a carbon tax, for that matter—he would have done it. The fact that he was not asked was a very, very good judgement, in my view.

Opposition members interjecting—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member has the right to be heard.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In terms of the substantive issue, I support the suspension of standing orders, because I think it is a debate that we should be very proud of. I am very proud to have supported the price on carbon.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sounds like a valedictory!

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Dickson will leave the chamber under 94(a).

The member for Dickson then left the chamber.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very proud to have supported doing something about climate change. I think history will judge those who have had the guts to stand up and actually try to address what is a very difficult issue in a difficult parliament. But this man, the Leader of the Opposition, was quite prepared to do that if he had been given the nod on that particular day. 'I will do anything, anything, to get this job'—they were the comments, and people know that, and they should know it, because you are an absolute disgrace in the way in which you are wandering around on this issue. You have exactly the same target as the emissions trading scheme pricing arrangements. You have exactly the same target in terms of the 1990 levels by 2020. And you have the audacity to actually say to people that you are going to achieve that target through a much more expensive arrangement than putting a price on carbon—particularly given the history that you have on this issue.

John Howard was someone that I had disagreements with from time to time, but at least he recognised that we have to do something about emissions in this world. There are opportunities that exist in regional Australia in terms of the pricing arrangements and the clean energy funds et cetera. I ask the Leader of the Opposition and other members within the chamber to just look at the meat industry in the next few months. Just look at the way in which they are going to address some of these issues. Come back in a few months and tell me if I am wrong. I do not mind that. There are enormous opportunities in terms of renewable energy in the meat industry. I suggest we start to vote for the future rather than— (Time expired)

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.