Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Hansard source

A billion people indeed, Senator Williams, and they are going to raise half a billion dollars from their carbon price. Well, our much smaller economy with a much, much smaller 22 million Australians is going to raise $9 billion. We are going to raise 18 times what the Indians are going to raise. And Senator Crossin thinks this is a good comparison and a good demonstration—

Senator McEwen interjecting

You want to go to budget responsibilities, Senator McEwen? I do not have the time to go to budget and fiscal responsibility with you lot. I have the carbon tax to deal with first. Senator Crossin thinks that half a billion dollars raised in India is comparable and is justification for us to have a $9 billion slug on the Australian economy. It really is just remarkable.

Senator Cameron spoke earlier in this debate and he actually had a few things to say about me. I thank Senator Cameron for flattering me with his attention. It is nice to get that, even when you are not in the chamber at the time. He accused me of being tainted in this debate. 'Tainted' was the word he wanted to use. I would love to know, in a fair analysis, what on earth Senator Cameron thinks the Prime Minister is. If I am 'tainted', what is the Prime Minister? She is utterly compromised in this debate now. She stands with no credibility left, having convinced the former Prime Minister to ditch his ETS and having gone to an election. Let us be honest: she went to an election, and we would all be saying, hypothetically, that she lied at the election, were it not unparliamentary to do so. That is what people would be saying: the Prime Minister misled, led the Australian people up the garden path, told mistruths—however you want to put it. It is crystal clear what she did. We all know what the words were—'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead'—one year ago today.

We know what Wayne Swan said one year ago yesterday: 'Well, certainly, what we reject is this hysterical allegation somehow that we are moving towards a carbon tax. We certainly reject that.' One year ago today it was an hysterical allegation. Not long after that, it was fact. It went from hysteria to fact because the government was misleading at every single step of the way. This govern­ment wants to come in here and try to debate everything and anything but the reality that they lied to the people at the last election, that they lied their way into office. As a result of that, they are now pursuing a policy that has absolutely no mandate, that was rejected by the Australian people, and they are not game to take it back. They are not game to go back and give Australians a fair chance, a fair choice to actually decide this. That is the challenge to them. Front up to the people. Let them have their say. Have courage in your convictions. That is when we might actually see a fair debate on this issue.