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

Let us be absolutely clear. First of all we had Senator Sterle's hapless Labor Party giving us the resource super profits tax

When that was a debacle, they moved onto the minerals resource rent tax. And, as of last week, we now have the third version, courtesy of Mr Shorten, who is considering yet another revision of the tax. There is uncertainty, upon uncertainty, upon uncertainty and job destruction, upon job destruction, upon destruction in the state of Western Australia that used to have a '3' in front of its unemployment figure. It is now nearly at six per cent, at 5.9 per cent, because of the huge damage being done to the Western Australia economy by the mining tax and the carbon tax—both of which we seek to repeal.

So what we have now is Mr Shorten, in Western Australia, hand on heart: 'I empathise with those people in Western Australia. We will revise the mining tax. We will look after their jobs.' He says one thing in Western Australia and then he comes to this place in Canberra and says and does exactly the opposite. He pretends to empathise and then he comes to Canberra to betray the people of Western Australia—the jobseekers of Western Australia—and all the opportunities that we can see blossoming for Western Australia are being frustrated by Greens and Labor senators in this place who are more interested in the cheap politics; whereas we are interested in job creation and we will continue on that path. (Time expired)

Opposition senators interjecting—