Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations (Senator Evans) to questions without notice asked by Senator Abetz and Senator Joyce today, relating to carbon pricing.

What we have seen with the carbon tax is the ultimate betrayal by a Prime Minister and a Labor government that absolutely have no mandate for a carbon tax. It is definitely a tax that is designed to drive up the cost of living. Senator Brandis spoke earlier about electricity prices going up by about $300 for the average family. But for the average family in New South Wales, who are suffering the burden of 16 long years under Labor, the cost for them will be much higher, at $500.

Senator Abetz and others in the coalition have already traversed the comments that Prime Minister Gillard made before the federal election ruling out a carbon tax. She has got more front than Myers. She goes on television and tells the world: ‘No, I rule out a carbon tax. There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.’ And there was Wayne Swan being his usual self, when he said, ‘What we rejected was this hysterical allegation that somehow we are moving towards a carbon tax.’ Well, Treasurer, that hysterical allegation has now become the cold, hard reality of what Labor is now doing to screw families and screw them down even further. Of course, during the election we had the ‘real Julia’ and the ‘fake Julia’, so which Julia made this decision? But there was nothing more fake than the promise that was made to the Australian people before the election, and of course that election promise was broken.

But what does one expect? Senator Abetz talked about Whatever it Takes. It is interesting to look at former Senator Richardson’s book, Whatever it Takesthis is their bible—which tells us: ‘Do whatever it takes and, if you have to lie, lie, lie and tell more damn lies to get into government, do it.’ Senator Richardson tells us that in the Labor Party the game is played hard. The Marquess of Queensberry rules never apply to Labor. That is them, through and through.

I want to take this opportunity to talk about the people of Illawarra. This is Labor’s heartland. The disdain that they have for their heartland is nowhere more evident than in the Illawarra. The headline of the Illawarra Mercury of Friday, 25 February is damning. Those across the way supposedly tell us they stand for the workers. There are potentially 12,000 jobs that will be lost in the Illawarra as a consequence of what the Labor government are going to do to their heartland, their people. The headline says, ‘Killer tax’. That is what the front page of the Illawarra Mercury said on Friday. Today’s Illawarra Mercury reads ‘Battlefront.’ This is what it is about: ‘BlueScope says carbon price could sound manufacturing’s death knell.’ This is what Labor is going to do to their heartland.

The words that I spoke on the CPRS legislation in 2009 still ring true today. I said: ‘The viability of 12,000 is at stake here.’ One person in the Illawarra Mercury commented at the time: ‘Champagne socialists, the lot of them. They are not the working person’s party anymore.’ At the time, the Illawarra Mercury asked a question that is still valid today two years later, because the Labor Party did not consult then and they have not consulted this time. They said: ‘The question now for the federal government is whether throwing 12,000 people in the Illawarra onto the unemployment scrap heap is worth the price of what is likely to be only a notional gain for the environment.’ This is an area that has one of the highest unemployment levels in the country. Labor does not give a damn about its heartland.