Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I ask Senator Pratt, who is obviously going to get up in a minute and prattle on, to disclose exactly how much the temperature is going to drop under their carbon tax and their emissions trading scheme. I ask you, Senator Pratt: if you are so proud of the detail in your policy development and how effective it is going to be, to tell me what price is going to be put on carbon. What price is the tax going to come in at? What compensation will there be for pensioners? If you cannot answer these questions, Senator Pratt, you are not worthy of standing in this chamber and defending such an idiotic policy as this carbon tax. The reason I know you cannot answer these questions is that none of you has any idea. You have not got a clue about what is going on. You are in the dark. You are like mushrooms pushing themselves up through the mess that has been left behind by the factional stooges.

The problem is that you might well push your way through the mess but the stink is going to stay with you forever. The stink is going to stay with the Labor Party forever and a day because you have proved yourselves to be inept. All of you have proved yourselves to have endorsed a Prime Minister that has been the most deceitful and deceptive Prime Minister we have ever had. You know I did not have any personal rapprochement with Kevin Rudd and I know that all of you dislike Kevin Rudd more than I do, but that is not the point. At least when Kevin Rudd said something you could almost believe him, unlike the current Prime Minister.

When it comes to policy, and effective policy, it is always the detail that brings people undone. It is not the great first lie, it is the detail and the subsequent lies that follow, and this is what we have found with this government. We know that the Prime Minister cannot be trusted. We know that the Treasurer has no idea what he is doing and talking about most of the time. We know he cannot be relied upon to give a straight­forward answer either. We know that, amongst the shadow ministry, they do not have much input into what is going on—