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

We have just witnessed the ultimate government change denier in this place. To not acknowledge that the Australian people voted in relation to this package of bills is breathtaking: breathtaking in its political stupidity, from the Australian Labor Party point of view but, even more importantly, breathtaking from the economic point of view. We know what the carbon tax has been doing to our nation. So bad was the carbon tax that before the 2010 election the Labor Party went to the Australian people, hand on heart, and said, 'There will be no carbon tax.' If the carbon tax was such a good idea why didn't they promote it? But after the 2010 election, having promised no carbon tax, they introduced it. Even worse, in the 2013 election campaign they put out brochures such as the one I hold, saying, 'Kevin Rudd and Labor remove the carbon tax.' That is what they said before the 2013 election. They are now being given the opportunity to actually remove the carbon tax and what are they doing? They are voting in the exact opposite direction to ensure that the carbon tax remains in place.

What we have seen from the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate is typical of an opposition that is frustrated by the will of the people. They are using every measure and standing order available to try to delay the inevitable. The Australian people voted loud and clear. If there was any issue that was up for discussion, not only in the 2013 election but since the 2010 election—for the full three years—it was that there should be no carbon tax. The Australian people knew what the issues were, and this package of 11 bills seeks to implement the government's policy. Now we have this lame excuse that there are two aspects of this package that need to be considered separately. The Leader of the Opposition in effect gave a second reading speech on both those bills. The reason why we are moving to abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation is outlined in the second reading speech. It is there for all to see. Very simply, setting up a government bank with $10 billion—that is 10 thousand million dollars of borrowed money, underwritten by taxpayers—to invest in high-risk ventures should be a thing of the past in this country.

What is more, we were upfront with the Australian people. Unlike those opposite, we were upfront and said: 'If we are given the mandate on 7 September we will abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.' Nothing could have been clearer. We said it and we are seeking to do it, and who now stands in the way but the Labor Party which promised no carbon tax and then promised they would get rid of it? Now we are giving them the opportunity to vote and they oppose it. Similarly, in relation to the Climate Change Authority (Abolition) Bill—why are we putting that forward? Because if you remove the carbon tax there is no real need for this authority, the principal role of which is to provide advice concerning the ongoing operation of the carbon tax. You abolish the carbon tax but you still want the Climate Change Authority, whose task was to advise on the carbon tax.

Senator Pratt interjecting—

Senator Pratt interjects—a person who campaigned against the carbon tax.

Sitting suspended from 18:30 to 19:30

I am in continuation in relation to the opposition's stunt of trying to split the package of bills which would finally remove the much-despised carbon tax from Australia. Before dinner, the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate suggested that there were two particular bills that needed separate consideration. I ask a very simple question: are the Labor Party going to vote differently on the other nine bills? Does that mean they are going to support the other nine bills but oppose these two that have been plucked out, it seems quite randomly, by the ALP? The deafening silence from the other side tells us everything we need to know: this is a stunt. There is no intention to vote differently in relation to the other nine bills, so why separate them out and why say that they need to be treated differently when you are, it would appear, going to vote exactly the same way?

We saw crocodile tears being shed by the Leader of the Opposition, who, whilst in government presided over the raw abuse of power and the guillotining through the Senate of the carbon tax—which they promised they would not introduce—and over 200 other bills, in concert with the Australian Greens.

Now, all of a sudden, the Leader of the Opposition believes all these issues need to be considered in greater detail. Can I remind this place and the Australian people—and I am sure the Australian people do not need reminding—this debate about a carbon tax started within the body politic of Australia before the 2010 election. Before the 2010 election, the Liberal-National Party coalition and the Labor Party promised the Australian people there would be no carbon tax. One party went back on that promise and we know which party that was. It was the Australian Labor Party, in one of the greatest acts of betrayal on the Australian electorate ever perpetrated by a government.

But not content with that betrayal they went to the 2013 election with a brochure and a policy, saying, 'Kevin Rudd and Labor removed the carbon tax.' That is simply false. We are still under a carbon tax. Job destroying as it is, punching holes in household budgets, ensuring that we do not get as much investment in this country as we so desperately need, the carbon tax is still here. Everybody knows it, yet Labor went to the election in 2013 saying that they had already removed it. Now they are being given the opportunity, in 2013, to actually vote for the abolition of the carbon tax and what are they doing? They are doing the exact opposite of what they said. They have form here; this is not just a one-off. They did that before the 2010 election and after the 2010 election. Now, in reverse, they are doing it before and after the 2013 election.

Then we had the nonsense from the Leader of the Opposition in this place asserting that, somehow, financial prudence required the continuation of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. That from the discredited finance minister, who personally presided over $100 billion worth of budget deficits! She comes into this place and purports to argue matters economic. I do not think so, especially not when we said to the Australian people up-front that we would be abolishing the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Indeed, we said in the second reading speech that, setting up a government bank, with $10 billion—that is, $10,000 million—of borrowed money, underwritten by taxpayers, to invest in high-risk ventures should be a thing of the past century. You would have thought that the Labor Party would have learnt their lesson when it comes to government banks. But it does not seem that they have. The wheel keeps turning and round and round they go, never learning the lessons of history.

Let us have a look at the other bill that, one assumes, Labor and the Greens would seek to excise from this debate and that is the Climate Change Authority (Abolition) Bill 2013. Once again, we said up-front before the election that we would be abolishing this authority with all its associated costs. We have had a longstanding commitment to abolish the Climate Change Authority for one very simple reason: it is not needed if you abolish the carbon tax. Of course, that is why Labor do not want to abolish this authority, because they want to keep the carbon tax. They want to keep the carbon tax, despite having said in brochures that they had already removed the carbon tax. Why on earth would Labor want to debate the continuation of this authority when they said that they had already abolished the carbon tax? Because the principal role of the authority is to provide advice concerning the ongoing operation of the carbon tax. We very simply say that, without the carbon tax and without this role, the need for a separate body to do this and other things will be gone.

But let us be clear: the bill also provides that the other, limited functions of the authority that might be required in the future will continue and be undertaken by the Department of the Environment. It is all very clearly spelt out and, as a result, exposes the contribution by the Leader of the Opposition for what it is: an absolutely hollow smokescreen to try to cover up a very transparent attempt just to delay and frustrate not—might I add here—the government's agenda but the people's wishes. The people actually voted for the abolition of the carbon tax.

Then we heard this nonsense from the Leader of the Opposition that both parties went to the 2007 election suggesting there should be a price on carbon. The answer to that is yes, but, as is always the wont of the Labor Party and the Greens, they left out a vital aspect. That was that we would act in concert with the rest of the world in relation to carbon pricing. After the Copenhagen summit was such a rip-roaring success, it was deemed by us that we would oppose and not be supportive of a price on carbon. It is job destroying. It is punching holes in household budgets to the tune of $550 per annum. So, by voting for this package of legislation, those opposite can redeem themselves with the Australian people. They presided over one of the highest increases in cost of living ever perpetrated on the people of Australia and they also presided over a huge increase in job losses.

We know what the carbon tax does: it punches holes in household budgets and it costs jobs. You ask any manufacturer that makes cars in Australia. It is a reverse tariff. Every Australian-made car has that component of carbon tax built into its price that no imported car has. Or there is the example of Coogee Chemicals, which was going to invest $1 billion in Australia, create 150 permanent jobs and provide either export earnings or import replacement of billions of dollars throughout the life of the plant. The carbon tax was the straw that confirmed to them that they should not be building in Australia. Where did they go? To China, where the CO2 emissions will be twice than would have occurred in a pre-carbon-tax Australia. That is why we have consistently said that the carbon tax was bad for jobs, bad for investment, bad for the economy and, perversely, bad for the environment.

Let me debunk the other falsehood asserted by the Leader of the Opposition: that we do not have an alternative policy. I am sorry; yes, we do. It is called the Direct Action Plan. We had it there at the 2010 election and for three years the Labor Party and the Greens tried to destroy it, day after day, month after month, year after year—and do you know what? They got no traction. They spun their wheels. The Australian people said, 'Yes, there is a better way to fix the environmental issues.' We said we could achieve the five per cent target through our Direct Action Plan, a plan that will ensure that the countryside actually looks better and has more trees, that our soils will be more fertile and that we will be able to assist in innovative technologies to help reduce carbon emissions—all good, practical environmental suggestions which can work and will work without such a job-destroying tax as the Labor Party have now committed themselves to.

Let there be no suggestion that ours is a do-nothing policy. It has been out there for three years and Labor and the Greens tried to pull the wings and the legs off it—and it still flew and the Australian people voted for it. We were told by Senator Wong that we did not want to tell the people about our policy. My goodness, we were out there selling it and the Labor Party and the Greens were out there trashing it—or they attempted to and failed. Now they have the audacity to say that we do not have a policy in this area. Day after day, week after week, month after month and year after year, the Labor Party sought to trash our policy position.

Now the Labor Party in particular have a choice to make. They can continue to frustrate the passage of this legislation—and, sure, the government will be upset. But do you know who is going to be even more upset? It is the Australian people and the huge swag of people who voted for the coalition for the very first time in their lives at the last election. The reason they did so? Sure, it was manifold—there was the border protection issue; there was the economic management; there was the pink batts problem; there was Building the Education Revolution; there was the internal squabbling. There was a host of reasons why the Australian people decided to change the management of this country, but it would be fair to say that the key issue, the standout issue, was the carbon tax that Labor promised not to implement and then did.

Now we are here having a repeat of this debate, after they went to the 2013 election promising that they had already removed the carbon tax. No, they had not. Now they have a chance and guess what? They are going to vote against these measures. They have learnt nothing from their betrayal of the Australian electorate in 2010 and nothing from the consequences of their 2013 election defeat.

I make these comments in sorrow for the once great Labor Party, which used to look after the interests of households, families and the average worker. They have deserted them in the vain pursuit of a green ideological elite which rank-and-file Labor voters are repudiating. They did so at the 2013 election, they did so in state elections right around the country and they did so in municipal elections right around the country, yet here we have the Labor Party and the Greens still in lockstep.

The Labor Party would have some shred of credibility in this debate for separating out the bills if the next speaker could tell us whether they are actually going to vote differently in relation to these 11 separate bills. So if they are going to wave the other nine through and just seek to tarry on the last two that Senator Wong mentioned, there might be some credibility. But the Leader of the Opposition gave us no indication that the Labor Party would cooperate with the will of the Australian people and wave the other nine bills through. That is what exposes this tactic as a simple political tactic designed to frustrate the will of the Australian people.