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

Oh, there is a yes! I think I heard one yes, out of a chamber of 76 senators. I hear one voice saying she would trust the Prime Minister. I ask that same voice: did you trust the Prime Minister when she said the day before the last election, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead'? I am sure you did believe the Prime Minister when she said that. I can tell you that tens of thousands of Australians voted for Ms Gillard as Prime Minister because they accepted her at her word; they accepted it when, hand on heart, she said, 'There shall be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' They voted for her because they trusted her. They thought that surely a Prime Minister could not tell lies like that; surely a Prime Minister could not be so barefaced as to look the Australian public in the eye through the lens of a TV camera and make a promise that she had no intention of keeping.

But that was only a few short months ago and here we are today with all the hoopla in the world. By the way, whose money is paying to advertise this hoopla? Is the Australian Labor Party's money paying for the advertisements and the build-up to the big announcement on Sunday of the carbon tax that the Prime Minister promised us she would not be introducing? Is the money of the Australian Labor Party paying for this outrageous political advertising campaign? Of course not. Who is paying? The taxpayers of Australia. It is being paid for by people who might be listening to this debate as they drive home from a hard day's work. They are working hard to feed their families, to get ahead, to put a little bit aside for a rainy day and to pay their taxes. Do those people expect that their taxes, which they have been earning today as they have slaved at work, will be used for political advertising by the Australian Labor Party for a tax that they promised they would not introduce? I say to people who might be listening to this debate as they drive home from work: can you ever trust anything that this Prime Minister ever says again?

Yet here we are with this Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Bill, with none of the detail in it, and we have the Prime Minister saying: 'We've told you what we really want this bill to be. We're a bit deficient on the details but, trust me, the regulations we'll put in place will cover everything you want covered.' Senator Conroy is the senior Australian Labor Party person in the chamber at the moment. Senator Conroy, why should we trust your Prime Minister when she says, 'Don't worry, the regulations will give all the detail that you want'? We did believe her once. We did believe her when she said, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.'