Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, I stalk Senator Cameron because the man, love him or leave him—mostly leave him—speaks his mind and truth. He does stand up. He called all of you on that side zombies. He told it as it was and I was given the opportunity to read it out. He is still talking. He is still talking big, although hardly ever delivering. But I have another clipping of Senator Cameron giving advice to the Prime Minister on the carbon tax. Give him credit; he will stand up to the Prime Minister. The article says:

Labor Senator Doug Cameron urged the Prime Minister to move quickly on revealing the detail of the planned carbon tax—

which we know nothing about; we do not even know the parameters that are being set—

saying that the debate would be “quite easy” to win when the public was better informed.

He might think that, but I cannot agree with him. The Prime Minister is not listening to him anyway, but I cannot agree with him that it will be quite easy to convince the public. At least he is speaking out. But he will not win the debate. You can give us all the detail you like. Whether it is with detail or without detail, the fact of the matter is that we have been to this debate before—it was called the emissions trading scheme—and you lost it. You lost it badly, terribly.

The Prime Minister has also been here before. This Prime Minister has been engulfed in this debate. This is the Prime Minister who previously adopted and urged the party to take on the emissions trading scheme. Then she talked Kevin Rudd into abandoning the emissions trading scheme. Then she dumped him for abandoning the emissions trading scheme. Then she promised, before the election, that there would be no emissions trading scheme—and then she goes and introduces an emissions trading scheme. Who is the real Julia? It was in the Australian today. Even Paul Kelly, a leading writer—20, 30, maybe even 40 years in the business—has to ask that question about the Prime Minister. Who is the real Julia? Who is the fake Julia? I am not sure Julia knows herself. For me, she is one and the same—she is a real fake and she is playing with you all over the shop.

This issue is about the living standards of the Australian people. No public representative can escape the concern of the Australian people, of the new-found dread of the Australian people in regard to living costs. It is nothing new to talk about living costs in this parliament but there is a new atmosphere about the increasing living costs—in utilities, in power, in water, in transport, in health and in education. There is a new-found dread among working families, pensioners and individuals that maybe this time they just will not make it, that maybe this time they cannot meet their power bills or their education bills. The introduction of the carbon tax is going to multiply their problems. In fact, they will lose their jobs. Only a couple of weeks ago, the Prime Minister made a speech in South Australia to tell us that the coalminers and the steelworkers may lose their jobs, given the Greens want to shut the coalmines down tomorrow, but we can retrain them and put them into green jobs—waiters at rainforest resorts. That is what the coalminers will be reduced to.

I would like to go on but time does not permit—it never does in this place. We need a good 20 minutes on an MPI. Eight minutes is never enough to go into detail, but you know the detail. I have the detail here. Costs of living are skyrocketing and you know it. That is what the next election will be about and the carbon tax will be at the centre of that debate.