Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

The Independents have again made their little contribution to this, and people, in New South Wales particularly, will not forget what Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor have done in relation to these issues. For example, today it was reported that RMIT economists have issued a report, and their research shows that if the Greens policy to shut down the coal industry was implemented it would see 200,000 jobs lost and cost our economy between $29 billion and $36 billion a year, without reducing global carbon emissions—200,000 jobs. I ask those opposite: are you serious about having as your partner a political party that will destroy the coal industry? Are you happy to have as your partner a political party which will destroy the cattle industry?

Another report shows that the Cattle Council of Australia and the NFF, the National Farmers Federation, have con­ducted independent research which shows that there will be a $700,000 impost on cattle producers with a carbon tax. That impost will range 'from $4,200 for beef producers in Victoria to $9,200 for graziers in Queensland'. So we have the coal industry, the Australian Taxation Office, which has not had any input into this at all, and the cattle industry.

Then, of course, we have the senior partner, the leader of the Greens-Labor alliance, who happens to sit in our chamber, the man who fronts up every Monday morning in the Prime Minister's office and says: 'This is what you're going to do.' What did Senator Brown—this is not the senator who changed her name to Rhiannon, I hasten to add; this is Senator Bob Brown—say about the Prime Minister's announcement yesterday in relation to the effect on petrol with a carbon tax? I will read it so those in the gallery can hear and so those opposite can hear, because they are the ones, quite frankly, who need to know what is going on. This is from an article in the Age this morning by Richard Willingham:

But Senator Brown, who had campaigned for petrol to be included—

Senator Polley interjecting—

Oh, so you do not like the Age now, either? So the Australian you don't like and now you don't like the Age: there's no-one left, Senator, for you to dislike in the media! The article says:

But Senator Brown, who had campaigned for petrol to be included in the tax, said: ''Forever is a very brave word in politics. Down the line I think there is an inevitability that all fossil fuels will, under the weight of evidence that they should, pay the full cost of the creation of climate change.''

In other words—