Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I too would like to congratulate you on your term, and your commitment and contribution to this place. Having been here with you for six years I have appreciated your guidance at times during the taking note of answers proceedings of the Senate—not all the time, but most of the time.

We have to be realistic: when we come into this place it is quite wrong for a senator to mislead the Australian community. I want to put it on the record, in relation to what is happening with carbon pricing around the world, that Australia is not tackling this alone. We know that. Even those people on the other side know that. The Prime Minister of New Zealand, a conservative I might add, addressed a joint sitting of both houses of parliament yesterday. We know, as those opposite do, about the actions that New Zealand is taking against climate change and the emissions trading scheme that was introduced there in 2008. The Prime Minister of the UK, David Cameron, is seriously talking about the need to tackle climate change. It is quite wrong for those opposite to say that Australia is trying to go it alone and what we are planning to do will not have any impact. That is quite wrong.

The stunt that Mr Abbott tried this week by recommending and moving legislation in relation to a plebiscite once again demon­strates how those opposite underestimate the Australian community. The Australian community are not silly. They know that this is another stunt, just as they know Tony Abbott is the Leader of the Opposition you could not possibly trust to be Prime Minister of this country. We know his record when it comes to health. We talk about core and non-core promises and election commitments that those opposite seem to think are not being kept, but we know what Tony Abbott did when he was Minister for Health. We know because we are still trying to recover the billion dollars he gutted out of health when he was minister. Those opposite should not for one minute believe that the Australian community are going to be conned. In terms of broken commitments, those opposite—and Senator Ryan was not here at the time—know the former Howard government were the experts when it came to core and non-core promises. We know and the Australian community know what the opposition's track record is.

Let us turn to the other issue raised in question time today: the refugees and the Malaysian solution that we are putting forward. I find it quite extraordinary that those opposite come into this chamber and try and lecture us about how to deal compassionately with refugees. We all know that the issues that Australia confronts with people-smuggling is a travesty. We should be, and we are, doing everything we can to stop the people smugglers. The opposition suggest that they know better when they had 11½ years to resolve these issues. We know their track record on how they treated women and children in the refugee camps. We know their track record and so do the Australian people.

I was really glad the whip asked me to speak in this debate, because those opposite once again tried to come into this chamber and lecture us about financial responsibility when it was those opposite that voted against just about every measure that we put in for savings in this budget. The response of those opposite when the global financial crisis hit Australia was: 'Let's keep our heads in the sand. Let's just wait and see what happens. Let's not overreact.' But the reality is, if we had not invested in the infrastructure in this country, had we not kept Australian workers in jobs, we would have been in a depression. What we did was talk about things that are positive instead of doing the opposite all the time.

Talking about the great investment made by this government in education, look at the BER funding. It was the best investment in education in this country for decades. Those on the other side can come in and try and rewrite history when we talk about financial responsibility, when we talk about the treatment of refugees, when we talk about the need to confront and deal with the tough issues like climate change. We will take the leadership.