John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I find this concerning about senators such as Senator Singh and Senator Cameron: where is their memory? Senator Singh was talking about action on climate change. Mr Deputy President, correct me if I am wrong, but there was a Prime Minister called Mr Kevin Rudd and he said that the greatest moral challenge of our time was to act on climate change, and so he went to bring in an emissions trading scheme. Then people realised that they did not understand it, first of all, and then that it was a monster tax on everything: that every time you plugged an electrical item into a power point you started paying it. In fact, it was the highest price in the world. It drove out jobs, shut down manufacturing and processing, shifted our cement industry overseas and affected our motor vehicle industry. And these people talk about jobs! They talk about policies!

Turning to Senator Cameron, perhaps he does not remember the run-up to the 2010 election—it is probably a long time back for Senator Cameron to remember; he may not remember back that far—but the point was that the Prime Minister at the time, their leader, was called Miss Julia Gillard, and she said, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' Then I noticed that, because the Greens were the dominant force in that political agreement between the Gillard Labor government and were driving the agenda, Senator Cameron and others just kowtowed to their requests. I actually saw them in here voting for a carbon tax. Senator Abetz, you remember it, I am sure—