Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

At the request of Senator Fifield, I move:

That the Senate notes the Gillard Government’s decision to blatantly break its unequivocal commitment to the electorate not to introduce a carbon tax.

Labor are addicted to spending, which is why they are addicted to new taxes. Whenever there is an issue, whenever there is a challenge, whenever there is something that Labor think needs to be addressed, there is only one solution—whack on a new tax. In the last term of government we were told that there was a binge-drinking epidemic. What was the solution to that? A 70 per cent increase in the tax on alcopops, ready-to-drinks. At the time we asked: where is the evidence that this tax will actually do anything to address this problem? There was none. In fact, around the world there was evidence that this tax would not work and now the evidence is here in Australia as well. We have got evidence that the alcopops tax has failed. We had Kevin Rudd in the lead-up to the 2007 election—