Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Even more she says, 'It is tedious repetition.' The Australian people heard repeated time and time again before the last election that there would be no carbon tax under a Labor government—

Senator Edwards interjecting—

and that they would not touch the private health rebate, as Senator Edwards rightly interposes. This is a government that has lost the trust of the Australian people, a Prime Minister that has lost the trust of the Australian people. Do not take my word for it: Labor leadership aspirant Mr Rudd, the member for Griffith, is on public record as saying that the Prime Minister has lost the trust of the Australian people. I wonder why when Labor looks down the barrel of the TV camera for the evening news and says: 'There will be no carbon tax. We won't muck around with the definition of marriage. We won't muck around with the private health insurance rebate.' The list goes on. When the public sees that government and that Prime Minister break each and every one of those solemn promises, Senator Brown—the absent Senator Brown, missing-in-action Senator Brown—and Senator Collins say the coalition should simply take it on the chin, not be critical of the government and simply pass the legislation.

There are big issues facing this country. We will air them and use every forum available to us in this place to ensure that these issues are ventilated on behalf of the Australian people. The carbon tax should be put to an election. Why were we promised no carbon tax? Why were we promised no fiddling with the health insurance rebate? Why were we promised no change to the definition of marriage? Because Labor and the Greens knew what would happen at the 2010 election. After the 2010 election we were told there was a new paradigm which somehow allowed breaches of promise. We as a coalition will never sign up to the suggestion that a new paradigm is one that allows deceit to rule, that allows broken promises to be undertaken as some type of virtue. We will not accept that as a coalition and we will continue to fight for honesty and integrity in Australian public life when it comes to these sorts of fundamental issues—issues that were put to the Australian people before an election and then so brazenly broken afterwards. In this new paradigm that we were promised, the Independents—so-called—from New England and Lyne, in particular, promised that the forms of the parliament would not be abused. Well, where are they today? Where were they at the end of last year when 19 bills were guillotined through—because they had to be rushed through—and then, in one of the most brazen and cynical manoeuvres ever, Labor and the Greens combined to cut the sitting period short by three days? Three scheduled days of Senate sitting were cut off the parliamentary timetable and they simply guillotined legislation through without debate. Excuse me, but I could not for the life of me hear the member for New England or the member for Lyne expressing their concern that this was a fundamental breach of the new paradigm, where every individual member of parliament would be allowed to speak.

It is now so very, very obvious that the Australian Labor Party in this place will allow the Greens to talk ad nauseam on the radioactive waste disposal site in the Northern Territory. That was spoken about ad nauseam—no need to guillotine the Greens. As I looked through this list of bills that are going to be guillotined—and I looked and I looked—I thought, 'Where is the Stronger Futures bill on this list?' Oh, I forgot; the Greens are opposed to it, so we cannot guillotine that one. We cannot guillotine that one because the Greens want to use their time on that.

What we are seeing yet again is the double standard being applied, especially by the Australian Greens. The forms of the Senate can be used and time can be used in this place for the Greens to ventilate their concerns about legislation and Labor will be complicit in that. Senator Fifield made the point that Senator Xenophon will be denied his opportunity in this sitting fortnight to make a contribution that was rightfully his. An Independent senator, a one-man band, who should be entitled to use the forms of this Senate as well, will be denied by this ruthless exercise of numbers by the Australian Greens and the Australian Labor Party.

We as a coalition believe that issues such as private health insurance, the Australian Building and Construction Commission and the mining tax all need to be ventilated—and ventilated fully. But we also believe very strongly that we should be ventilating issues such as the Australian Research Council, for example. Remember the time when Labor used to tell us how important research was—that this was the future of Australia; that we should celebrate research? Well, we have an Australian Research Council amendment bill and Labor are so committed to this that they are going to give us 15 minutes to debate it—15 minutes. One second reading contribution is 20 minutes. So not even one senator will be able to make a speech in the second reading debate in relation to just that one bill. And of course the list goes on.

Let us be very clear on this. This is arrogance writ large by the Green-Labor alliance using their numbers in one of the most arrogant displays I have witnessed in my 18 years in this place. Senator Collins suggested to us that, when it comes to the end of a session, one should try to time manage. As Senator Fifield so eloquently put it, we are just nine days into the sitting year and we are applying the guillotine in this most ruthless and unprincipled manner.

The Australian people can see once and for all today that last year's guillotining of 19 bills and the cutting short of the parliamentary timetable by the Green-Labor alliance was not simply an aberration. That sort of behaviour has now become core business and indicative of their approach to this place and the parliamentary forum. Their arrogance shows no end. We as a coalition will seek to end it at the next election.