Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I will say a few words in relation to this debate to exempt certain bills from the provisions of the cut-off order. I thank my colleagues on this side of the chamber for their contributions but I ask: where is Senator Bob Brown, the great saviour of Australian democracy? Scurrying out of here with that insipid smirk that we saw on his face this morning—a deceitful smirk from a politician who does not deserve the title of senator.

I want to talk about something else today and I invite colleagues and those people who are listening to watch the footage of the carbon tax going through the other place this morning. They will see a bevy of kisses for the Prime Minister and others involved in this deceit. I say to the Australian Labor Party that you had a kiss in the other place this morning but it was the kiss of death for this government. How the Australian Labor Party members in the other place could not constrain themselves is beyond me because that footage will be replayed and replayed and replayed. That was a kiss of success based on a lie. It was a kiss of success based on deceit and a complete, utter fabrication given to the Australian people before the last election.

It has been said today, and I will say it again for the benefit of those in the gallery: six days out from the election, the Prime Minister promised the Australian people that there would not be a carbon tax under a government led by her. The Manager of Opposition Business has referred to that debate. The Leader of the Opposition in the Senate has referred to that. Senators Macdonald, Nash and others have referred to that today. Mr Acting Deputy President, I ask you to go back and check your emails because I think you will find what I have just found in the last hour—that the level of anger from the Australian community will play out at the ballot box.

To those 72 members who were elected on a lie, we will haunt you every single day until the next election. The Australian Greens, who, apart from a very small insipid contribution from one of their members, have not participated in these debates today, may well think they are licking their chops in success. I can tell you now that the Australian Greens will also feel the wrath of the Australian people at the next election. This feigned disassociation from this debate today will not save the Australian Greens from the wrath of the Australian people.

I put on the record again a couple of comments from senior Labor Party ministers to put some context to this debate today, and in the other place, and to the debate which will occur in this chamber while we debate the carbon tax bills. I will read three quotes and I ask those on the other side to reflect on those quotes. It is not just the Prime Minister's quote that there will be no carbon tax under a government she leads. In an interview with Marius Benson on ABC NewsRadio on 16 April 2010, we heard:

A carbon tax is a less efficient way in the Australian Government's view of dealing with this issue.

The same person said, in a speech to the Committee for Economic Development for Australia's State of the Nation conference on 23 June 2010:

A carbon tax is not the silver bullet some people might think.

Again, the same person, on Sky News on 30 April 2009:

We know that you can't have any environmental certainty with a carbon tax.

Who was that? That was Senator Penny Wong, a senior government minister—