Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

He is a very good man when it comes to these issues, Senator Conroy. It is a pity you and your cabinet colleagues did not take some notice of him. We heard yesterday, from the drip-feed of good ideas—the issues coming out that might in some way try to divert the anger of the Australian public against the public tax—'Hang on, ordinary motorists as you drive home, we are not going to put a tax on your petrol.' But we did not hear this about the transport industry, as Senator Sterle pointed out. I am surprised, Senator Conroy, that you, with your Transport Workers Union background, have not come out fighting for the long-distance transport industry.

Some of us live in rural and regional Australia. I live some two or three thousand kilometres away from Canberra. When our petrol is taken up to the regional areas by tanker it costs money for transport. If those big tankers are going to be subject to the carbon tax, then it is going to add to our cost of living. I understand—there have been reliable estimates—that our cost of living will go up by something of a minimum of $1,000 every year. In fact, we read in the papers just last week that the saleroom price of the Holden Commodore or the Ford Falcon is going to go up $1,000 because of Ms Gillard's carbon tax—that is, the carbon tax she promised, one day before the last election, that she would never introduce in any government she led.

How can we possibly believe the Prime Minister when she says: 'Vote for the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Bill 2011. I know it hasn't got detail, but trust me, I'm going to put in that detail.' The polls are showing that 60 per cent of Australians—I venture to say that that is a minimum, a very small figure—are prepared to say they do not believe the Prime Minister. Very few Australians will ever believe the Prime Minister when she says anything. I know half the Labor Party do not believe the Prime Minister! You might remember that a couple of days before she knifed former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in the back she was saying—what was it?—'I've got more chance of playing full forward' for that funny sport which I do not understand. She said, 'I've got more chance of playing full forward for the Bulldogs'—was that it?—than becoming Prime Minister of Australia.'

This person, our Prime Minister, has form. She promised Kevin Rudd, two days before she 'assassinated'—his word, not mine—him, 'I could fly to the moon before I would become Prime Minister.' Two days later, what happened? There was the midnight meeting around there, the acrimony, a done-over vote the next day and, lo and behold, there she was. She promised she would not be Prime Minister, but she stabbed poor old Kevin, the member for Griffith, right in the back and assassinated him as Prime Minister of our country.

So, as I said, she has got form. 'Kevin, I'm not going to take over your job as Prime Minister.' But immediately she said that, there she was. To the Australian people she says, 'I promise there will be no carbon tax by a government I lead,' but this Sunday we will all be waiting with bated breath to see just what this new tax from the Australian Labor Party is going to cost each and every one of us.

I fear for rural and regional Australia. I fear for those people who, like me, Senator Nash and Senator Adams, live remote from the capital cities and the areas of production and distribution of goods. It is going to cost us a lot more. Perhaps most importantly, I fear for the jobs of workers where I come from in Central North Queensland. I would have hoped that the Australian Labor Party, with their claims that they look after the working person, would have done something to help those people whose jobs, futures, family homes and kids' education depend on their having a job.

But with this carbon tax—and add on to that the mining tax that we are yet to experience—these people are in for a really uncertain future. That distresses me. I am very concerned for their future. I am very concerned for the future of our nation because this government continues to tax and tax and, more importantly, simply cannot be trusted to keep its word.

It is for this reason that I and the rest of the coalition, while agreeing with the principle of this bill, cannot support the bill while so many parts of it and so much detail remain unwritten.