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

What we have here is an issue of fundamental importance to the future of our nation. First of all, it is the democratic issue of a broken election promise, but not just any election promise: one that was made so solemnly, so deliberately and so carefully. There would be no carbon tax. Nothing could be clearer than that. Yet in question time today Senator Evans, despite knowing the fact, could not bring himself to admit that, yes, that is what the Prime Minister said; yes, it is a fact that the Labor Party’s election speech did not contain any mention of a carbon price or a carbon tax.

This government deserves the censure of the whole Senate. Indeed, I have a sneaking suspicion that if there were a secret ballot there would be members of the Labor Party caucus who would be voting for this, because they were not even allowed to have a say. So much for the community consultation. The Prime Minister did not even consult the community representatives that were democratically elected. I think she knew what the result would be.

So I accept that on this occasion we will not have a secret ballot. But I plead with those on the crossbenches to consider the gravity of this situation, because this government is deserving of censure for its deceit, for its deals and for its denials, which have now morphed into their new carbon tax—a tax which will hurt every single Australian household budget, will costs tens of thousands of jobs and will mug the world environment to boot.