Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to oppose this motion of censure against the government after quite an hysterical contribution by Senator Joyce, full of a whole range of inaccurate assertions. I do not propose to go through all of them, but I have to say that if opposition senators come into this place to talk about the cost of living the first thing the Australian people should remind them of is that they are the senators who voted for Work Choices, to rip away wages and conditions from working people. They are the senators who voted for Work Choices and are still wishing to do more on that front. We know that Senator Abetz cannot help himself. He really wants to revive that policy and every time it comes up you see him say something on discipline until they put him back in his box again.

I remind Senator Joyce, who talks about the cost of living, that this is a government that put in place a stimulus package to protect the jobs of working Australians families. It was a stimulus package that you opposed. We know you would have been happier if hundreds of thousands of Australians were on the unemployment queues. This is also an opposition that, when it talks about tax, let us remember, went to the last election with a tax hike. That was what was funding your paid parental leave scheme. You come in here and talk to us about taxation, but you do not remind people that not only did you propose increased taxation but also you are proposing to take over $10½ billion out of taxpayers’ funds and give it to polluters without any net environmental advantage. If you want to talk to us about a policy which is crazy, Senator Joyce, have a look at what Mr Hunt has cooked up for your side of politics.

At the last election the Labor Party said very clearly: we believe climate change is real, we believe carbon change is real, and we want to move to a market mechanism that puts a price on carbon. The Prime Minister announced a proposal to come to a market mechanism that puts a price on carbon. There has been a lot of talk about truth and people not telling the truth. I remind the opposition that Mr Abbott is the Leader of the Opposition who said that people should not take anything he says as the gospel truth unless it is written down—‘Don’t take it as the gospel truth unless I have actually written it down.’ I do not think anybody watching the debate on climate change over the last three years, including in the election campaign, would be under any allusions about the fact that the Labor Party believes that climate change is real and we wanted to introduce a market mechanism to price carbon. That is what has been announced.