Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Education) Share this | Hansard source

'A scare campaign,' Senator Furner says. Since when did putting the facts in front of the Australian people become as scare campaign? It is not and you and all of your colleagues on the other side of the chamber know it very well, Senator Furner. This is not a scare campaign. This is about telling the Australian people like it is—and they are listening. They are listening because they know what the ramifications of this are going to be. They know what the impact of this carbon tax is going to be. It is going to be disastrous.

But let me return to the 'hysterical allegation' that the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, said we were making by saying that this government was going to bring in a carbon tax. As I said, apparently it was not hysteric­al. Apparently if you are hysterical you are correct. Interestingly the Labor member for Wakefield, Nick Champion, said in June:

It's important that people get it right and we have a measured and patient debate about it—

the carbon tax—

and not a hysterical debate that (Opposition Leader) Tony Abbott wants.

Apparently we were hysterical when before the last election we said there was going to be a carbon tax, so one can only assume that if we are being hysterical now, warning about the ramifications of this, we are right again.

I fear for the future of this country with a carbon tax in place, I truly do. I might be a parliamentarian, but first and foremost I am a wife and a mother of two teenage boys. Those boys are going to have to deal with this carbon tax in the years to come. There is nothing—no benefit—to come from this whatsoever. I worry for them and all of the other young people around this country who are going to have this carbon tax foisted on them having had no opportunity ever to have say about whether or not they want it. That is appalling. It is absolutely right and proper and appropriate for this side of the chamber to try and fix it so that the Australian people can have a say, because the impacts of this are going to be disastrous.

Why have we got it? Let us have a look at why we are going to have this carbon tax. It comes right back to the government, which can now only be described—and I am sure Senator Bob Brown actually likes this description—as the Labor-Greens govern­ment. I am sure he must like that description because he has already indicated that one day a Green will be in the Lodge and that the Greens will move to take over the Labor Party—oh, sorry, take over the Labor Party's space. I wonder what the Labor Party thought about that when on Monday Senator Brown so very humbly said that they may well move to take over and be even more important than the Labor Party. I do apolo­gise, Senator Brown, that I am not quoting you directly, but I hope I am giving the essence in the correct context.