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

Yeah, that'll fix it! If the government gives you a schoolkids bonus, that will somehow address the cost-of-living pressures on families. Yeah, that'll fix it! Great! That is the Australian Labor Party's very cunning public policy. Isn't that wonderful! As if somehow Australian families will benefit sufficiently from that. We know electricity prices have gone up by 60 per cent in the last five years. A sugar hit, a schoolkids bonus, will not match that. But of course this government has not got anything else to proffer. It is the old story: flash a bauble, flash a bit of tinsel, flash anything—take the minds of the electorate off the pain, grab the cash and all the problems will go away. Well, they will not. The Australian people are alive to what Labor is up to. It did take a while, but they are now.

This carbon tax is toxic. The cost-of-living pressures that it will bring are considerable, and the Australian people know, no matter what compensation—such as this schoolkids bonus—is offered, it will not address the fundamental problem, and that is this: the carbon tax will make Australian industry less competitive. That is it in a sentence. It will make Australian industry less competitive. Costs must go up. It will make our exports more expensive. It will make us less competitive in relation to the rest of the world. That is a fact. And they are doing it to a country which is built on exporting energy. Why would you do that? Why would you make it harder for a kid to get a job? Why would you do that? Why would you make it harder for our exporters to export? Why would you do that? Well, this lot have done that. That has been the outcome of their policies.

After all this time debating the carbon tax—God, it seems like forever; two or three years—we are still debating it, and our side will never give up. The carbon tax is wrong, and no schoolkids bonus will answer that. No sugar hit is ever going to wipe away the stain of a tax that makes Australia a less competitive country, that makes it harder for our kids to get jobs. We will never, ever let the Labor Party get away with it.

I know the legislation has gone through, but, when we get in, we will take it back. As Mr Abbott says, if necessary we will go to a double dissolution. We will do whatever we do not because it is the Labor Party's legislation but because the carbon tax is not in our national interest. This lot have never, ever made the case that the carbon tax is in the national interest. That is a debate they lost. They won the election on a lie, and the debate in this chamber was lost by the Labor Party. They could never, ever justify the fact that the prices of our goods would go up and Australia would become less competitive. No amount of compensation, no schoolkids bonus, no other shiny, flashy baubles, will ever—