Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

It seems that the minister's sole defence for extracting additional funds from Australian families for child care is that they took this to the last election, promised it, and there was widespread consultation. I suggest to the minister, before I put my question, that this line of defence is wholly and entirely uncredible given the history and track record of this government. Let us remind ourselves of some of the promises that were taken to the last election. There was the cash-for-clunkers deal. Australian families' cash has certainly paid for a clunker of a government, but that is not what it was about. It was about a transition into new cars from old. It was entirely discredited, but it was taken as a key plank to the last election. I do not see the government implementing that because they knew that it was a bad piece of policy.

We also have the instance, as Senator Nash articulately outlined, of the carbon tax. 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' Those words haunt every Australian family today as they expect their electricity bills to rise, their jobs to be lost and industry and carbon emissions to be exported overseas. And not to see climate change one jot or tittle, not to see it change one iota, but to re-engineer the Australian economy with a tax that we cannot afford. Of course, that was another promise that this minister conveniently overlooks. But there was also the promise that, instead of a carbon tax, there would be efforts to build community consensus about the need for a carbon tax. There was going to be a cabal, a gathering, of people with different view­points about climate change and what action needed to be taken on it. There was going to be a lasting and deep community consensus before—