Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr President. We know the Labor Party are girding their loins, but I say to the Australian Labor Party: bring it on. We will have the fight, because we will say to the Australian public: ‘It is quite simple: if you don’t understand this tax, do not vote for it. Do not vote for this massive new tax.’ That is a clear representation. We will say to the Australian public: ‘If you believe that this massive new tax is going to change the climate, go right ahead.’ But we say to the Australian public that this massive new tax is nothing more than a self-indulgent, conceited gesture from the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. This massive new tax has absolutely no capacity whatsoever to do anything to the climate. So we say to the Australian public, ‘If you do not understand this tax, do not vote for it.’ We say to the Australian public, ‘If you do not want to pay more for your power to run your air conditioner, do not vote for the Australian Labor Party.’ We say to the Australian public, ‘If you do not want to pay more for food, do not vote for the Australian Labor Party.’ We say to the Australian public, ‘If you do not want to pay more for the slab of concrete to build a house on, do not vote for the Australian Labor Party.’ We say to the Australian public, ‘If you do not want to pay more for the steel purlins and trusses in your roof, do not vote for the Australian Labor Party.’

The Australian Labor Party are a party of big taxers and big government, a party that will come into your wallets and rip the money out of your wallets to put it in the pockets of Mr Kevin Rudd and the Treasury. But on the way through they will help the brokers, the bankers and the bureaucrats out. They are going to help them out, but they are not going to help the working families out. They are not going to ease the squeeze on working families. So we look forward to the election, because this will be a debate about how much tax you can rip out of the Australian working families’ pockets.

It has nothing to do with the climate. You have never, ever, in your whole time in committee, been able to prove a connection between this tax and a reduction in global emissions. You could not do it. You refused to do it. Every time we openly questioned you on it, you just resorted to calamitous statements. It is always about calamitous statements. When you cannot prosecute the debate, you resort to calamitous statements. Then you talk about the last election. If you believe the premise of our last election was the ETS that we took to the election, might I remind you that we lost? So, if that is the case, what an indictment it is on your proposition that we should continue with a policy that obviously did not obtain us the treasury bench! You believe it is so pertinent, but it has been rejected by the Australian people, and therefore the pertinent thing to do—