Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Lundy has finally found her tonsils again. But she was not able to defend the decision on Anna Burke, what she? Very interesting. This government started breaking its promises before it was sworn in. It was already dealing with the Australian Greens, making a deal in the vexed area of whether or not this nation should have a carbon tax. Let us just recall for history how Ms Gillard and her deputy, Mr Swan, ran the last election campaign. On 15 August Mr Swan said this:

... what we rejected is this hysterical—

mark the word ‘hysterical’—

allegation that somehow we are moving towards a carbon tax ...

That was six days before the last federal election. Five days before the last federal election Ms Gillard said:

There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.

Then on the day before the election—and this is how hot a topic this was during the campaign—on the very last day of the campaign, on 20 August, Ms Gillard said:

I rule out a carbon tax.

Where is that promise today, given the grubby deal that they have made with their new alliance partners, the Australian Greens? Now, after the election, after having been sworn in again, Ms Gillard was asked by a journalist:

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, are you ruling out a carbon tax? Is that something you will look at?

PM: Look, we’ve said we would work through options in good faith at the committee that I have formed involving, of course, the Greens, and it’s my understanding that Mr Windsor will also seek to participate in that committee. We want to work through options, have the discussions at that committee in good faith.

JOURNALIST: So you’re not ruling it out then?

PM: Well, look, you know, I just think the rule-in, rule-out games are a little bit silly.

Well, if ruling in and ruling out was ‘a little bit silly’ after the election, why did she specifically rule it out before the election? If it was a silly game after the election, it was a silly game before the election. But she knew that she was headed to electoral oblivion unless she gave that rock-solid guarantee that there would be no carbon tax—a carbon tax which will inflict even higher prices on the cost of electricity and the cost of living for each and every Australian, inflate food prices and, if Australia goes it alone, have the perverse impact of making the world’s carbon dioxide emissions even greater. Why? Because, as we price out our manufacturing industry with a carbon tax, they will simply move from Australia to those countries without a carbon tax. Indeed, in my home state of Tasmania we have a zinc works—I use this example on a regular basis—producing one tonne of zinc for two tonnes of CO2. In China they create that same tonne of zinc for six tonnes of CO2. So if you price our manufacturing sector out of the world marketplace, the world will start buying their zinc from China—no longer from Tasmania and South Australia—and, as a result, the carbon footprint on the world will be even greater. That is the perverse outcome of Australia going it alone with a carbon tax. Ms Gillard knew that. She knew the threat to jobs in all these manufacturing sectors, and that is why she specifically ruled it out. Six days before the election, five days before the election—on the day before the election, she ruled it out. And yet now it is a silly game to play, asking her to rule it in or out.

What it means is that Labor thinks they can break every solemn promise they made to the Australian people by virtue of the fact that they had to sell their political soul and their principles to cobble together a government of such diverse colours, from the extreme left of the Australian Greens to country conservatives. They try to sell it as a rainbow coalition. Yes, it is a rainbow coalition. Rainbows, as we all know, look pretty—but they are illusory. If you try to touch them they are not there. The closer you get to them, the further away they get.