Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Universities and Research) Share this | Hansard source

That is right, Senator Boyce. What about GroceryWatch? This was all about cost-of-living pressures for working families. Guess what? Working families do not matter any more to the government. The government cannot even utter the words, words that will not speak their name, because they are embarrassed that cost-of-living pressures have gone through the roof. One of the worst is electricity, and what will happen when the carbon tax hits? According to the government, it does not matter. It is a tax on pollution. But pollution does not pay tax. Companies will pay tax in the end and their prices will go up. And who will pay that? The consumer. Working Australians. Working families will pay that money. That is what will happen.

We have a comparative advantage in cheap energy in this country. It is one of the great advantages of this nation, and this lot are going to give up that comparative advantage unilaterally to the rest of the world. Can you imagine that? Imagine the pressures on every single thing that is created in this country using energy, which is nearly everything. Everything in this country will go up, and this lot are going to give it to the Australian people without extracting anything from the rest of the world. It is an absolute disgrace.

This lot are such great negotiators that it will say 'We will take five refugees if you take one.' These are the sorts of people who are supposed to negotiate our future and look after the future of this country. It is absolutely pathetic. And there is the diversion of the digital set-top box. After the shambles of the pink batts and the school halls, the granddaddy of them all will be the NBN. As they said in the Age today, it will be likely to cause fires. That is what this new digital set-top box will do. It is a farce. In the end, this is not a budget; it is a bandage to stop the Labor Party bleeding.