Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Materiel) Share this | Hansard source

Indeed. I take that intervention. We have got a consensus today: it is a consensus of the Australian people that this should not proceed, yet that is exactly what has happened in this house today.

The government's hopes apparently are pinned on the thought that it all will not be as bad as it appears to be on paper at the moment. Of course, if the government's predictions are right and we see electricity rises of only 10 per cent in the first year, the government might be doing quite well, because bodies like the Centre for International Economics are telling us that that could be only a small sample of what is to come. Electricity prices could leap by 30 per cent. The effect on household earnings could be a fall of $11½ thousand, not the $5½ thousand forecast by the government. The loss of production to the Australian economy between now and 2020 could be more like $180 billion than the $32 billion forecast by the government.

The crowning achievement here is that the government not only has passed this tax today against the wishes of the Australian people and in breach of its own promises to the electorate at the last election only 12 months ago, it has also said it will not allow the tax to be repealed even if the next election becomes a referendum on the carbon tax and even if the Australian electorate overwhelmingly backs a coalition government with a mandate to repeal this legislation. How contemptuous has the Labor Party become of what is right, what is decent and what is appropriate in the democratic institutions of Australia's parliament. They believe they should do this because they think it is right and they do not care what the electorate thinks, but the fact is the electorate has the final say on this. The government should take that on board when it decides what to do with this tax. (Time expired)