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

I seek leave to move a motion relating to the Clean Energy Bill 2011 and 17 related bills.

Leave not granted.

Pursuant to contingent notice, I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to provide that further consideration of the Clean Energy Bill 2010 and 17 related bills not take place until after elections for the 44th Parliament have been held and the parliament has met.

There has been no greater betrayal of the Australian people than the introduction of the Clean Energy Bill 2011 and its 1½ reams of associated bills and explanatory memoranda. Make no mistake that, of the people sitting opposite, half of them were elected on a solemn promise to their constituents that there would be no carbon tax. If the carbon tax was such a great idea, why did Ms Gillard, Mr Swan and the Labor Party say, only six days before the last election, there would be no carbon tax? If the carbon tax was such a great vote winner and if they had confidence in their own policies, they would have gone to the people promising a carbon tax and they would have romped in, one would have assumed. The fact is the Australian Labor Party knew full well that the Australian people opposed a carbon tax. And, as time has gone by, that opposition has increased manifold. Indeed, the latest poll indicates that those who strongly support a carbon tax are 17 per cent of the Australian population and those who strongly oppose a carbon tax represent 44 per cent of the Australian population. When you put just those who support or oppose it, is a 60-40 divide in favour of the coalition policy of opposing a carbon tax.

We in the coalition believe that the Australian people should be entitled to a say. We believe that there are precedents for a government changing its mind to go to the Australian people. The Australian Labor Party, as is their wont, inject into the carbon tax debate the suggestion that Mr Howard changed his mind on the GST. As is the wont with Labor, what they say is right but it is grossly misleading, because Mr Howard did change his mind but he had the decency and character to do this. The coalition said to the Australian people: 'We have changed our mind. Previously we said no GST; therefore if you re-elect us we will impose a GST but only if you give us the mandate.' The Australian people trusted the Howard government and gave us the mandate and, as they say, the rest is history.

Here we had a clear promise on the eve of an election to the Australian people where the Prime Minister herself, staring down the camera lens into, she was hoping, every living room in the country, said that there would be no carbon tax under a government she led. And when we said, 'Don't believe Labor as they have form in this area,' they wheeled out the hapless Treasurer, the deputy leader, Mr Swan, to say that we were being hysterical. Well, the Australian people now know we were historical, not hysterical, and exactly what we claimed is now coming to pass.

The Australian people have a right to ask how, when every coalition member in the House of Representatives and the Senate and every Labor member in the House of Representatives and the Senate were elected on a no-carbon-tax policy, somehow it is going to get through the chambers of this parliament. The only reason is the gross act of betrayal perpetrated on the Australian people by the Australian Labor Party. That is why we as a coalition believe that these carbon tax bills—and let us dispense with this nonsense of 'clean energy bills'—represent a huge measure which, with the impact of a $9 billion tax take, will increase power bills by a minimum of 10 per cent, increase gas bills by nine per cent, lead to higher marginal tax rates with a higher impact especially on single-income families—part of Labor's social engineering—and will impact over a quarter of a million self-funded retirees. All these people have a right to have a say. All these people have a right to cast judgment on a government that has so betrayed them. That is why we as a coalition are calling on all Labor senators, especially those who were elected at the last election on the promise of no carbon tax, to search their conscience and vote, as they promised the Australian electorate they would, against any measure for a carbon tax. They can redeem themselves by supporting this proposal so that the 44th Parliament gets to deal with the issue.