Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Hansard source

I, too, stand here to support the motion put forward by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. The reality for Australians today is that if the Prime Minister of Australia, the Australian Labor Party, the Labor Party members in the other place and the Labor Party senators in this place actually stood by the very clear promise made by the Australian Labor Party the day before the election that there would be no carbon tax under a Labor government then we would not be standing here today debating this motion put forward by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate—but we are. We are here for a very, very disappointing reason. Each of the Labor Party members who were elected at the last election and each of the Labor Party senators who were elected at the last election were elected on the basis of a blatant lie. That lie—the statement made by the now Prime Minister of Australia the day before the 2010 election—will haunt the Prime Minister to her political grave.

Recently, I was at a community fair in the electorate of Brand. Those in Western Australia who live in the seat of Brand will know that it is currently held by Mr Gray, the Special Minister of State. At the community fair, I had a petition. It was a 'no carbon tax' petition. Within one hour of walking around the fair, I had collected in excess of 250 signatures. But what is worse for Mr Gray is that I did not have to go around asking for the signatures. I had people coming up to me, saying: 'Thank goodness we found you. Can we please put our name to your petition.' I would ask them why, and they would say: 'Because we don't like being lied to. That is exactly what the Australian Labor Party did to us the day before the election. They lied to us, and we don't like being treated as fools.' They also said: 'We will never be voting Labor again.' I had over 250 signatures in an hour. The majority of people who signed the petition found me; I did not have to go out and find them.

What was the lie? Let us just put it on the record again. The lie was the Prime Minister of Australia saying just before the election, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.'