John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

They have betrayed their constituents, Senator Ronaldson; that is exactly right. They say they are not conservative seats. Have a look at the Senate vote in those seats: 44 per cent to the coalition in the Senate vote. They are not conservative seats: those seats do not belong to politicians; they belong to the people and the people will have their say on 14 September. They believe that their local members have betrayed them and sided with a Greens-Labor government, left-leaning, that has done its utmost to cripple business in this country. Never forget that in a free enterprise economy the nation's wealth is derived from the business sector, and if you strangle that business sector you strangle the nation.

This government has broken its promises. The carbon tax, the minerals tax and the other crazy schemes it has brought in that it thinks will change the planet will not change a thing. China is going to go up to 7.6 billion tonnes of CO2 a year by 2020 and we are going up from 578 million tonnes to 621 million tonnes or even more now apparently. We are not reducing our carbon dioxide output in this country. All we are doing is shifting our industries overseas, like our cement industry, which is put under enormous pressure.

Our government is doing this through crazy policies, crazy borrowing and wasteful spending. All these appropriation bills are doing is topping up the financial mismanagement. That is typical of the Australian Labor Party. As I said, come 14 September the Australian people will be able to have their say and they are very much looking forward to it.