Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

The coalition does deny the formality being sought by the government, because we want to ensure that they will have to take each and every step to perpetrate their deceit on the Australian people. We will not allow them to just throw into the Senate 19 bills and say, 'This is a package'—we will challenge their conscience on every single bill. They know that the only reason they are sitting on the government side of this chamber and in the other place is that Ms Gillard solemnly promised the Australian people that there would be no carbon tax. A greater deceit in Australian politics we have not witnessed. Sure, the second prize goes to former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating when he promised L.A.W.—law—tax cuts before an election, legislated them, got re-elected and then immediately repealed them. It is no wonder Ms Gillard said just the other day that she saw her government in the same light as the Keating government; no wonder also that she dug into that treasure trove of tricks that Mr Keating used to deceive the Australian people all those years ago. What we are seeing today is a repeat of that history.

We are not going to allow the Labor Party to simply deal with this as a 'package of bills'. We want them to deal with each one, vote on each one, knowing that on each of the 19 occasions they are betraying the trust that the Australian people placed in them.

I had occasion to say earlier today that 148 members out of the 150-member House of Representatives were elected on a promise of no carbon tax. Five out of the six senators elected at the last election from each of the states were elected on a promise of no carbon tax. Two out of the two senators elected from each of the territories was elected on a promise of no carbon tax. And yet somehow this carbon tax, I understand, is going to get through this parliament. The Australian people are right to ask how they have been betrayed in such a gross fashion. How is it that, when an overwhelming majority of people have been elected on a solemn promise not to do something, they seek to do the exact opposite? That is going to be the millstone around the Labor Party's neck. Some call it the 'Milnestone' around the Labor Party's neck, but of course the Greens are the architects of this policy.