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

It is interesting that the new senators were, apart from one, the ones who voted with us to truncate the debate. It is senators like Senator Whish-Wilson and others, who have been around the track time and time again, repeating their arguments time and time again, who want to have even further time to debate. It confirms to me and the government that this is a Greens-Labor strategy to deliberately delay the demise of the carbon tax—a policy we went to the election on, promising that if we were elected it would be the first item of business to be considered by the new parliament. And it was. The House of Representatives had as its first item of business the repeal of the carbon tax. It then came to the Senate and, hour after tedious hour, this debate has kept on for nine months—over 33 hours. We believe it is time for the matter to come to a conclusion.

I invite the Senate to vote to support these bills. In doing so, I acknowledge the speeches of Senators Lazarus, Lambie and Fox and thank all other senators for their contributions. In short, removal of this tax will lift a millstone from the neck—