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

the ‘real Julia’—exactly right, Senator Ronaldson. ‘Trust me,’ she said. On the topic of trust, Senator Evans claims that he cannot remember what Ms Gillard said in her policy speech. Allow me to remind him. On the very first page, she said this: ‘I want to speak to you. I want to speak to you from my heart. I want to speak to you about my values.’ So it was from her heart and based on her values. I went through this document page by page, line by line, word by word, to see where there was this promise of a carbon price that had always been front and centre of Labor’s policy, according to Minister Evans. I am sorry: there was no mention of a carbon price; there was no mention of a carbon tax. Indeed, page after page, line after line, word after word, there is not a mention of a carbon tax or carbon price.

Finally, in the very last paragraph, eight lines from the end of Labor’s policy launch, is the only reference to climate change. That which was the great moral challenge of our time in 2007 was relegated to the very last paragraph and smothered in puerile pathetic plagiarisms of Mr Obama of the ‘Yes, we will’ kind. Climate change was thrown in at No. 5 out of nine. The statement was, ‘Yes, we will work together and tackle the challenge of climate change.’ That is it. In over 5,000 words, 12 words were devoted to climate change. And that was in the context of us having a citizens’ assembly. What was one of the first thing done after the election? The citizens’ assembly was axed. There was no pursuit of a community consensus, but there was a pursuit of a consensus with the Australian Greens and a few Independent members of the other house.

But the important thing is this: even with the acknowledgment that Ms Gillard said, ‘Yes, we will tackle climate change,’ after that she was asked, in effect, ‘Does “Yes, we will,” mean a tax on carbon?’ and she denied it. She denied it not once, not twice but on too many occasions to count, as did her Treasurer, Mr Swan. The denials were innumerable. The denials were shrill, with the coalition being labelled as hysterical and engaged in dishonest scare tactics.

Why the shrillness from Labor during the last election campaign? Why the unequivocal denials from Labor during the last election campaign? Why this grave betrayal now after the election campaign? Because, as we have seen only too often, Labor will say whatever and do whatever because their moral compass for government is ‘whatever it takes’.

The Australian people should feel aggrieved at this gross betrayal. But it is not only a gross betrayal; it is also bad policy. Here in the Senate are the two Greens leaders, pretending to be the champions of my home state of Tasmania. All I would ask them to do is read the Access Economics report on the impact that a carbon tax will have on transport. Their home state of Tasmania will suffer more greatly than any state in the Commonwealth. The cost of living will be most impacted in the southern part of Tasmania. And they claim to be senators from Tasmania.

Previously, we heard the shrill intervention of Senator Wong, a senator from South Australia. In her state, there is one of the cleanest manufacturers of zinc in the world. Indeed, in her home state, Nyrstar makes one tonne of zinc for about two tonnes of CO2 emitted. In China, that same one tonne of zinc is made with six tonnes of CO2 emitted to the atmosphere. So when we price our zinc out of the world market, the world market will buy its zinc not from South Australia or from my home state of Tasmania but from China. As a result, this madness of a carbon tax—in the absence of a world agreement, and that is an important caveat—will mean the pricing out of the marketplace of clean products in favour of dirtier products.

That is why I say to those on the Greens bench, on the crossbench and especially on the government bench: when you talk about a carbon tax in isolation, the factory owners of the BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India and China—are cheering you on from the sidelines, because they see the benefit for their economies. I happen to think that most Australians would be willing to suffer a bit of an economic loss if there were, on the other side of the ledger, an environmental dividend. But the simple fact is that there will not be an environmental dividend, and that is why this tax has such a disastrous bottom line. It will mug Australian jobs, it will mug Australia’s cost of living and, what is more, it will mug the world’s environment. We all know that. The Labor Party knows that. That is why Labor went to the last election solemnly promising that there would be no carbon tax. In August 2010 a carbon tax was a bad idea. Despite its being a bad idea, according to the Labor Party, we had the Greens willingly giving them their preferences.

One wonders whether a pre-election deal may in fact have been made, but that is for the Greens and the Labor Party to tell the Australian people. The simple fact remains that no manner of squirming and no manner of word games claimed by the Prime Minister can get her out of the solemn promise she made. This cuts at the very heart of our democratic system. Our democratic system is based on integrity. It is based on trust. It is based on the belief that when a government goes to the people with a promise it can in fact be believed and the promise can in fact be implemented.