Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Bushby for that very important question. The effect of more Labor-Greens delays in dealing with the carbon tax repeal legislation will be more job losses. When we came into government we inherited an economy growing below trend. We inherited rising unemployment. We inherited a situation where the previous government, egged on by the Greens, had imposed more and more burdens on the economy and more and more burdens on business, arguably at the worst possible time.

Of course we were faced with a range of challenges. There were challenges from the high Australian dollar. There were challenges from global economic conditions. But at the worst possible time the Labor-Greens alliance in government imposed further costs on business that are creating serious challenges, in particular for manufacturing businesses across Australia.

Instead of enabling the growth dividend that would come from scrapping the carbon tax, instead of helping to create more jobs, the Labor Party recklessly and irresponsibly are standing in the way of building a stronger economy and creating more jobs. The previous Labor government were pretty bad. The previous Labor governments, led by Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard, were arguably the worst governments in the history of the Commonwealth. But Mr Shorten clearly has not learned the lessons of the last election. Clearly nothing has changed under the leadership of Mr Shorten, because Mr Shorten is leading a reckless, irresponsible and, quite frankly, disgraceful blockage and filibuster that is preventing the growing of a stronger economy and the creation of more jobs. It is very important that we scrap the carbon tax as soon as possible. (Time expired)