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

Senator Ruston, that is a very good question, because the carbon tax that the Labor Party voted to keep, even though they are telling everyone they are against it and they want to abolish it—in fact, Senator Pratt said they had already abolished it—continues to go up and up every year. In the first year it was $23 a tonne. It was to raise $7.6 billion. Then, from 1 July 2013, it went up by five per cent to $24.15 a tonne, and on 1 July 2014, a couple of weeks away, it is due to go up again by another five per cent. This is the tax that the Labor Party is telling the Australian people they are opposed to. It is the tax that Julia Gillard said we were never going to have. It is the tax that Labor senator after Labor senator from Western Australia said they were going to get rid of, on the same day that Labor in this chamber was voting to keep it. It is time that Labor remembered the national interest and it is time that Labor stopped misleading the Australian people.