Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

No, I voted no and I made it clear before and after.

One of the reasons I do so is because, whilst there is no doubt that we as a government and the Prime Minister have acknowledged that we could have done better, I would like to outline for the Senate in the time I have available the significant achievements that this government has already made in its first 17 months in office. These are undeniable achievements. These are significant achievements. These are achievements that we now need to build on. We should not forget what we have done, the mess we have inherited and the efforts we have made to fix that mess over the last 17 months.

If there had not been a change of government, we would still have the carbon tax. Australians would still be forced to pay an extra $550 a year because the Labor Party decided that was a reasonable imposition. It is interesting in the context of debates about a co-payment that the Labor Party, who are opposed to any form of price signal, say they are happy for households, no matter how much money they might have, to have to pay an extra $550 a year as a result of their carbon tax. So we got rid of that, not just taking pressure of households but helpfully creating jobs, taking pressure off business, lowering the cost of doing business in this country so that we can grow jobs. That is the sort of thing we have seen.

We got rid of the mining tax for one of our key industries. Again it is about economic growth, it is about investor certainty and it is about jobs. It is, importantly, about jobs. The mining tax was another attack upon a key industry in this nation. The Labor Party and the Greens came up with this scheme, and we have managed to get rid of it.

What else have we seen? We have stopped the drownings at sea—a significant achievement—