George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Everybody in this chamber knows that for nearly three years, since the former Prime Minister Ms Julia Gillard broke her promise not to introduce a carbon tax, we on our side of politics said, 'We will make the next election a referendum on the carbon tax.' That was the central issue in Australian politics for all of the last three years, and nobody can be in any doubt that, when we won the 2013 election, we won it on a promise, supported by the Australian people, to repeal the carbon tax.

As the first order of business, we introduced legislation to repeal the carbon tax. Now, on the 10th day on which this Senate has sat since the end of June this year, all the Australian Labor Party and their Green allies want to do is to go home, stop working and prevent the government doing what the people gave us a mandate to do—to repeal the carbon tax and to repeal the mining tax. You have contempt for the Australian public. You have contempt for the result of the election. You have contempt for your own role as legislators. Why don't you get out of the way and give the people what they voted for?