Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise on the adjournment this evening to talk about a government which is intent on repeating the errors of its short history and a government which cares more about fish than it cares about people. We might have thought that this government had learned a few lessons about making policy on the run. After all, it is not as if they have not had plenty of opportunities to learn. We have had the ill-considered, poorly thought through Home Insulation Program. We have had the bungled school halls program. We have had a mining superprofits tax—a policy to which the current Prime Minister and Treasurer enthusiastically subscribed until they read the polls, at which point they quickly threw it on the scrap heap along with the political corpse of a former Prime Minister. We have had the East Timor solution, which was going nicely until the Prime Minister discovered that it might have been a good idea to consult with the East Timorese before making her announcement. So that was ditched and, before we knew it, we had the Malaysia solution, which was so poorly designed the High Court struck it down. In less than two weeks, Australians will cop the world's biggest carbon tax—the final manifestation of one of the most cynical deceptions ever perpetrated on the Australian electorate. The government is right to talk about its compensation package—its one-off payment to relieve the pain for Australian families, retirees and pensioners—because its carbon tax will hurt people. We have a compensation program because the carbon tax will hurt people. It is worth noting its compensation package is a one-off payment, whereas the carbon tax is the tax that keeps on taxing. Year in, year out it will continue to rise.

Tonight I want to draw the Senate's attention to the government's expansion of marine parks. It seems the Prime Minister's determination to placate her political enablers in the form of the Australian Greens goes further than the imposition of the world's biggest carbon tax. We now have the government proposing the world's biggest network of marine parks. I am old enough to remember the statement that no child will live in poverty—