Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is a sad day for some on this side of the parliament but it is a joyous day for others—and it will be a diabolical day for the Labor Party. You have to congratulate Senator Bob Brown. He has performed magnificently and he had led the Labor Party into oblivion. I have never seen anything like it. I have never seen a person who has totally different views from the blue-collar workers of Australia being able to swing a whole party, like a bunch of lemmings going over the cliff. You have to congratulate Senator Brown. He has captured the Labor Party. All that clapping in the gallery when Senator Brown got up to speak reminded me very much of the Labor Party vote slipping and slipping and just ebbing out. While the Greens were rising, the Labor Party was falling.

This legislation is going to start to take effect on 1 July 2013 and the first volley will be when people get their electricity bills. And it will not be going up 10 per cent. It might go up 10 per cent in the homes and you will probably stand that. It will hurt people. It will hurt the pensioners. It will hurt the unemployed. Maybe people can afford it, but where it is going to hit hard is when, on top of all the state charges, it goes up 30 per cent in industry. Every industry is going to have to pay an increase of 30 per cent. As Senator Joyce referred to today, the only way we have a manufacturing sector is by embracing cheap energy, which we have an abundance of. But the Labor Party and the Greens want to even it up a bit and take our advantage away from us.

I cannot see how you get out of this one. I cannot see how the Labor Party get out of this. I cannot see how they got into it. Why would you sell out your soul and your blue-collar workers—the people who have supported you and paid their union fees and religiously turned up to hand out your how-to-vote cards? How could you sell them out? How could you be conned by a bunch of Greens, who are really the socialist alliance and the hard, hard left of the parliament?

You got a warning shot today when Coogee factory said, 'We are going to close down a whole factory and put a huge number of people out of work and we will go overseas.' Rio Tinto are selling their refineries—and the carbon tax has not even come in yet. The carbon tax has 18 months to go. It has not come in yet and already we are seeing casualties—people are already leaving. Rio Tinto have got their refineries on the market. Someone rang me the other day and said, 'I cannot survive a carbon tax.' It was the last tanner in Australia and represented the kangaroo industry. There is a flow-on effect of that to rural Australia. In every little town there is a little kangaroo box out and the shooters shoot into that. It goes to the tannery and they make very high-quality leather. That is to go. You are going to see a domino effect sweeping across Australia. It has already started. I do not know how you ever got into this situation. How could you fall for a bunch of people like the Greens? You know what they are like. They are the hard, hard left, the anti-Semites. They are the socialist left and you are traipsing along behind them. You are going to pay a very heavy price. It has been a great victory for Bob Brown and his nine supporters over there, but it is going to be the most terrible loss for the Labor Party. We will never forget this and the people will never forget the betrayal that you have inflicted on them. (Time expired)