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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance and Deregulation (Senator Wong) to questions without notice asked by Senators Brandis and Cormann, the Leader of The Nationals in the Senate (Senator Joyce) and Senator McKenzie today relating to the carbon tax.

The government now has its carbon tax. Its carbon tax has passed through the Senate, and some would say that this is a breach of faith with the Australian community by virtue of passing a tax which was promised faithfully would not be passed under a government Julia Gillard led. Some would say that it is a move taken at the expense of the Australian standard of living. Some would say it is a move that will make no difference to the overall level of carbon pollution around the world. But at least the government does have its tax. Now I think it is time for the government to start to answer some questions about how this tax will work and what effect it will have on the Australian people.

But today in question time the government failed to do that. The government were asked a series of questions by opposition senators. How will this affect regional Australia? What level of difference is there between electricity costs in regional Australia and major cities, and how will the carbon tax affect that? Is this not the largest per capita carbon tax in the world? To all of those questions Minister Wong contemptuously threw back political point scoring, revelling in the hubris which is now characteristic of this government with respect to this issue. They are out of touch, have lost the plot and are unable to explain what their plans for the carbon tax, with its huge change to the Australian economy, will mean. Today the opportunity they had to provide those answers on the basis of having passed their carbon tax was once again lost.

I understand how the government can proceed on that basis in this cocoon which is the federal parliament. They can have the carbon tax pass when the galleries are full of staffers and members of GetUp! to cheer them on and hurry them on their way, but I would not commend this approach when it gets to the broader electorate. This government has comprehensively failed to sell this policy to the broader electorate. Outside this place there are people who are concerned, worried and feeling betrayed by a government that said it would not take this step but now has done. If the Prime Minister were to be believed when she said some months ago that she would begin her task of passing this carbon tax by building a deep and lasting consensus around it, she has failed and failed miserably.