Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Universities and Research) Share this | Hansard source

As Senator Madigan recognised earlier in this debate, Ben Chifley would never have sold out workers and working families in our country for the sake of satisfying the moral vanity of the inner-city trendies. Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard do not even bat an eyelid. The sad thing is that so many of Labor's senators and members in fact know this is a disgrace. They know it; the awful thing is that they have not got the courage to speak about it. The great tragedy of modern Labor is this: they have been cannibalised on the Left and they have sold out on the Right. The Prime Minister was certainly right when she said that this was a Labor government that had lost its way.

Remember the light on the hill? The light on the hill has flickered out and been replaced by a green wind turbine. Welcome to the new Dark Green Ages. Labor's continuing quest for relevance means that it is now far more comfortable fighting for polar bears and dolphins than it is fighting for working families. That is modern Labor. Labor and the Greens will sell our country's prosperity to satisfy their moral vanity. They will mortgage our national interest to make themselves feel better. They will gamble our nation's future to satisfy their guilt and their self-loathing. They want to be heroes. They want to save the world. They want to make the state bigger and the people smaller. They want to shackle business and empower government. They want to take the money from the productive and distribute it amongst the rent seekers in Australia and abroad. The Labor-Greens carbon tax will damage Australia and, as we all know, it will do absolutely nothing for the environment.

This is not about embracing the future. It is not inevitable, it is not moral, it is not righteous and it is not enlightened. It is self-righteous. In the end the carbon tax is a tax conceived in guilt and given birth to upon a lie. It is the bastard child of the Australian Left. The idea that the working people of this country should foot the bill so that Labor and the Greens can feel good about themselves is the ultimate betrayal of the people this lot say they represent. They will sell out working families so they feel better, so they feel righteous and so moral vanity can come to the fore. That is what modern Labor stands for. It is the final act of a party that does not deserve to govern, does not deserve respect and does not deserve the support of ordinary working families and ordinary Australians. In the end we back the boy from Bankstown and this lot back the luvvy from Balmain. They do not deserve to govern this country.