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

That is the centrepiece, as Senator Cormann has just interjected. On the government's own figures, it is nearly a $25 billion tax over the forward estimates. So this is not some minor issue; this is all about cost of living. This schoolkids bonus will not come anywhere near touching cost of living over the long term, not at all. The great tragedy for our nation is that this government has decided to introduce a carbon tax—the world's largest carbon tax, as Senator Joyce always reminds me—in a country with a comparative advantage in the export of energy and minerals. I cannot imagine any country actually unilaterally imposing in effect a tariff on itself to make its goods and services more expensive. I cannot imagine what is even worse: a country such as Australia, with a comparative advantage in the export of energy, doing it.

My colleagues no doubt are tired of me saying this; they have heard me make this argument so often. My colleagues say that the great dishonesty was the Prime Minister's not warning Australians that she would introduce a carbon tax. Sure, that was dishonest, but I think the greater lie, the far more worrying lie, is this: the government has always argued that, irrespective of what any other nation on earth does, the unilateral imposition of this carbon tax by our country is in our national interest. That to me is the greatest lie of all. This lot have said from the beginning, following Professor Garnaut's report, that, irrespective of what any other nation on earth does—even if no other nation prices carbon—it is in our national interest to price carbon.