Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations (Senator Evans) to questions without notice asked by Senator Abetz and Senator Joyce today, relating to carbon pricing.

What we have seen with the carbon tax is the ultimate betrayal by a Prime Minister and a Labor government that absolutely have no mandate for a carbon tax. It is definitely a tax that is designed to drive up the cost of living. Senator Brandis spoke earlier about electricity prices going up by about $300 for the average family. But for the average family in New South Wales, who are suffering the burden of 16 long years under Labor, the cost for them will be much higher, at $500.

Senator Abetz and others in the coalition have already traversed the comments that Prime Minister Gillard made before the federal election ruling out a carbon tax. She has got more front than Myers. She goes on television and tells the world: ‘No, I rule out a carbon tax. There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.’ And there was Wayne Swan being his usual self, when he said, ‘What we rejected was this hysterical allegation that somehow we are moving towards a carbon tax.’ Well, Treasurer, that hysterical allegation has now become the cold, hard reality of what Labor is now doing to screw families and screw them down even further. Of course, during the election we had the ‘real Julia’ and the ‘fake Julia’, so which Julia made this decision? But there was nothing more fake than the promise that was made to the Australian people before the election, and of course that election promise was broken.

But what does one expect? Senator Abetz talked about Whatever it Takes. It is interesting to look at former Senator Richardson’s book, Whatever it Takesthis is their bible—which tells us: ‘Do whatever it takes and, if you have to lie, lie, lie and tell more damn lies to get into government, do it.’ Senator Richardson tells us that in the Labor Party the game is played hard. The Marquess of Queensberry rules never apply to Labor. That is them, through and through.

I want to take this opportunity to talk about the people of Illawarra. This is Labor’s heartland. The disdain that they have for their heartland is nowhere more evident than in the Illawarra. The headline of the Illawarra Mercury of Friday, 25 February is damning. Those across the way supposedly tell us they stand for the workers. There are potentially 12,000 jobs that will be lost in the Illawarra as a consequence of what the Labor government are going to do to their heartland, their people. The headline says, ‘Killer tax’. That is what the front page of the Illawarra Mercury said on Friday. Today’s Illawarra Mercury reads ‘Battlefront.’ This is what it is about: ‘BlueScope says carbon price could sound manufacturing’s death knell.’ This is what Labor is going to do to their heartland.

The words that I spoke on the CPRS legislation in 2009 still ring true today. I said: ‘The viability of 12,000 is at stake here.’ One person in the Illawarra Mercury commented at the time: ‘Champagne socialists, the lot of them. They are not the working person’s party anymore.’ At the time, the Illawarra Mercury asked a question that is still valid today two years later, because the Labor Party did not consult then and they have not consulted this time. They said: ‘The question now for the federal government is whether throwing 12,000 people in the Illawarra onto the unemployment scrap heap is worth the price of what is likely to be only a notional gain for the environment.’ This is an area that has one of the highest unemployment levels in the country. Labor does not give a damn about its heartland.

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion to take note of answers relating to carbon pricing. I would not have thought that anyone from the opposition would mention, in the context of this debate, the Illawarra Mercury, which is after all famed most for its ‘Honest John’ headline, which was used to describe former Prime Minister John Howard after he was found out with this: ‘There will never, ever be a GST under my government.’

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He did not lie. He went to an election.

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Cormann is trying to justify a lie in a campaign by a former Liberal leader. ‘Never, ever’ means not this election, not the one after that and nor the one after that. There seem to be two rules that those opposite live by. If it is a lie told on their side, it is all right; you can find a way to justify it. But if someone else says something that they seek to portray in that fashion there is no coming back from it. We have to look at the behaviour of this opposition and what occurred when they were in government. Frankly, it was not just Mr Howard who told a lie.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, he didn’t.

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He said that there would never, ever be a GST. Is there a GST? Did Mr Howard introduce a GST? Yes. Does that mean that there never, ever was a GST? Of course it does not. They will argue that black is white and that white is black to try and justify their opportunistic argument. It is consistent with their opposing everything that this government has put forward. Ever since Mr Abbott took over their leadership, that has been their code: oppose, oppose, oppose. You could have predicted last week how the opposition would behave this week. We also had the experience of Mr Abbott as the health minister saying before an election that he would give a rock-solid, ironclad guarantee that certain health changes that his government had implemented would not be taken away.

Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Hold the clock for a moment. Senator O’Brien, are you in your correct seat? We are not sure that your microphone is working. We are broadcasting and I am sure the world would love to hear your wisdom.

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to start again!

The Acting Deputy President:

Please continue, Senator O’Brien.

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to continue. Excuse me: in the heat of the argument I slipped forward one seat, which was not my intention. Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President. The reality is that from the health minister the Australian people were, in an election campaign, given a guarantee that was described by Mr Abbott as rock-solid and ironclad. After the election, the government reneged on that promise and Mr Abbott justified it.

We have experienced since the last election a government put into power without a majority in the House of Representatives for the first time since the Second World War. In those circumstances, the government called together all parties to sit and discuss the question of climate change, because there is no doubt that this is a very important issue. Many decided to attend. What did the opposition do? They said, ‘No, won’t; we’ll boycott it.’ To have participated and to have been constructive would have undermined the very philosophy that these two parties under Mr Abbott have followed: to oppose everything. You cannot oppose everything if you want to participate in a constructive discussion. From that point on, we knew that whatever came out of that discussion would be opposed by the opposition.

Frankly, the Prime Minister has been trying to put in place arrangements—arrangements that business have been urging upon the government—to assist this country to do what it needs to do to handle the economic imperatives and international pressures that will inevitably come upon our community because of the issue of climate change. With China and the US and a number of other countries taking their steps towards handling this issue, it is incumbent upon this nation to do something.

Going through that process of consulting with the parties who form the majority in the parliament was all that any government could do, and that is what the Prime Minister has done. She has taken to the Australian people a proposition that will be tested through the parliament. It will be the subject of further discussions. Ultimately, it will come back to this chamber and will be voted for or not. That was the appropriate thing for the Prime Minister to do. Playing games about semantics, which is what this opposition seems to be good at, is nothing to do with the good of this nation. At the end of the day, we are going to have to take this argument forward. This opposition will not do that, because all they want to do is oppose, oppose, oppose.

David Bushby (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion to take note of answer relating to carbon pricing. It has been absolutely fascinating today to hear the government members trying to justify and defend the indefensible. There is absolutely no doubt that prior to the election the Prime Minister made ironclad guarantees that no government of which she was the leader would introduce a carbon tax. Within three weeks of the election we saw her backing away from that, and last week we saw her blatantly breaching that undertaking she gave, hand on heart, to the Australian people.

Senator O’Brien made a few comments. In his attempt to defend the indefensible he raised some historic facts that he said were somehow a parallel to what the Prime Minister is currently doing. He referred to former Prime Minister John Howard’s ‘never, ever’ statement about the GST. He said that meant not this election, nor the one after that, nor even the one after that. He said that a lie is a lie is a lie, from my recollection. The reality is that no-one on this side has suggested that things do not change. At times we do need to revise the policy positions, move on and look at how they need to be updated or even completely changed, depending on changes in circumstances. That is what John Howard did. He realised that there was a need to move from the position he was in. What he did not do was deceive the Australian people when that position changed. He went back to them and asked for a mandate to do something completely different to what he earlier said he was going to do. He would not have done it unless he had the people’s mandate. We have not seen anything like that from the Prime Minister on this particular issue. Mr Abbott has asked her to take it to the people and seek a mandate, but there is no indication whatsoever that she will. The reality is that in all likelihood she was successful in August of last year because of the fact that she, hand on heart, stood in front of the Australian people and said, ‘We will not introduce a carbon tax.’

Senator O’Brien also raised the issue of Abbott and health funding. The fact is that the health agreement he was referring to was put in place under a different minister, Senator Patterson. When Abbott, facing a need to address funding issues, chose to increase real funding in health by something like $7 billion instead of the increase of $8 billion that had been agreed with Senator Patterson, it was not a backflip on his position; it was a change in the overall circumstances, which led to a need to make some changes. Instead of providing an additional $8 billion, he provided an additional $7 billion. So there was certainly no reduction in funding.

Moving on to the actual issue at hand, the answers to the questions: as I said, prior to the election the Labor Party, and more particularly the Prime Minister, repeatedly pledged that they would oppose a carbon tax. A carbon tax would not be introduced under Prime Minister Julia Gillard. This was an issue in the days leading up to the 2010 election. Make no mistake. It is not drawing a long bow to say that there were people who made their decision on how to vote on election day of 2010 based on the Prime Minister’s ironclad guarantee that she would not introduce a carbon tax. We have heard it many times today but I think it is worth hearing again: on the Friday before the election, the Prime Minister stated categorically, ‘I rule out a carbon tax.’ She also claimed on Channel 10: ‘There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.’ It was not just the Prime Minister making those statements. The Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister, Wayne Swan, said: ‘What we rejected is this hysterical allegation that somehow we are moving towards a carbon tax.’ Was it really hysterical? Quite clearly not, given that we found out last week that not only are they moving towards a carbon tax but they are going to try to deliver one.

Almost immediately after the election the Prime Minister broke the guarantee that she and other members of her cabinet had provided to the Australian people. Do not believe her when she says that it was for some higher cause—to save the planet or some similar aim. Her comment that it was because of the changing dynamics in the parliament is much closer to the truth—that is, she was only too happy to see that election promise broken in order to hold on to power. That is the real reason she has broken this promise: so that Labor can hang on to control, hang on to power and hang on to the Treasury bench. She did so by seeking to curry favour from the Independents and, more importantly, the Greens. It is a grubby but certain reality that, once again, Labor is more interested in looking after itself than the interests of the nation.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion to take note of answers relating to carbon pricing. It is amazing: I think the fire in this fight has gone out already from that side over there. It is unbelievable. We see the same pictures all the time: Senator Fierravanti-Wells—‘the ultimate betrayal’. We have all the light, all the colours and all the movement.

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And Richo.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is right: and Richo. Thank you, Senator Collins. I watched the Prime Minister make the announcement last week. It was amazing, because the first line she threw out was, ‘Get ready for the mother of all scare campaigns.’ The mother of all scare campaigns has started. And hasn’t it come with a vengeance? It was brilliantly carried off, in their minds, on Friday morning by their favourite darling of talkback radio, the five-time-failed preselection loser for the Liberal Party, Alan Jones, on his radio show. Sure enough, if you bring out the dog whistles, who is there? Alan Jones. I could go on about ultimate betrayals and all those sorts of things and concur with my colleague and friend Senator O’Brien. How did Senator Brandis refer to former Prime Minister John Howard? ‘The lying rodent’. That’s right.

David Bushby (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But you’d rather sweep it under the carpet.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hear Senator Bushby over there. In your heart, Senator Bushby, I think you really do try to do the right thing by your side of politics. But you sit there and say that John Howard had a mandate when John Howard told an absolute fib. John Howard said, ‘never, ever, ever’ about a GST. John Howard did not pull a rabbit out of a hat and do the right thing and go to the people the next day, which you lot are carrying on about. He waited. He was no different from the Prime Minister. She has said that she wants to talk about it, that she wants to negotiate it, that it will go through to the other house and that it will come through to this chamber. You lot over there will have the opportunity to do what you want to do and to vote against it, and you will carry on with the rhetoric that we have been hearing since you knifed Malcolm Turnbull and elected Mr Abbott—opposing every single thing.

I do not have a lot of time to put my message across, but I would like to put this to the people of Australia. It was with great embarrassment throughout the election campaign that I watched Mr Abbott put himself up as the future alternative Prime Minister. I sat there and thought to myself: ‘What does this man stand for? What are his policies? What do his faithful disciples on the other side of the chamber see in this man? What is he going to do for Australia? What would he do for our kids if he were to win the election and form government?’ All I heard throughout the whole campaign was what Mr Abbott and the Libs and the doormats were not going to do—nothing about what they were going to do.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The National doormats.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Did I say doormats?

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The National Party.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The National Party and doormats. But please, help me out; I would love to stand corrected on this. It would be wonderful if someone could challenge me by standing up and telling me what those opposite were going to do, please. There are a couple of minutes left. What were you going to do? I plead with you. They were going to do nothing. All they wanted to do was stop, stop, stop. We have got a Prime Minister who has said very clearly that she wants to negotiate a carbon price. There will be the opportunity for those opposite to have their say.

I have sat in this place since two o’clock this afternoon, when we had question time. Then, at about 20 past two, those opposite pulled their cunning stunt. It is now quarter to six and the fire has burnt out. It has only been three hours and you are burnt, you are gone—you have got nothing to talk about. There is not even a decent interjection coming from that side. Normally when I am on my feet I get some good interjections. There is nothing. It is an absolute shambles on that side of the parliament. There is no fire—20 minutes is the best they can do.

We need certainty for this country. We need certainty for our children and our grandchildren, we need certainty for business and we need certainty for employers. We got into a sad situation in late 2009. In good faith, Mr Turnbull and his motley crew at the time were in negotiations with Senator Wong and the previous Prime Minister. When there was the belief that this country could move forward and do something about climate change, what did those opposite do? They took out their leader. The lunatics are in charge of the asylum.

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In speaking to the motion to take note of answers given by Senator Evans today in question time, I make it very clear that either Prime Minister Julia Gillard has lied to the Australian people or she is a puppet of the Australian Greens—or indeed both, and I believe it is the latter and that I can prove it in the next few moments by putting evidence to this Senate. Senator Milne said not so long ago, ‘It is happening because we have shared power in Australia.’ Senator Milne, the Tasmanian senator, confirmed on the record that they have shared power in Australia. We know they have already signed a deal. The Labor Party have signed an agreement with the Australian Greens and these are the consequences. We are now going to see a carbon tax. But I believe that is a fraud on the Australian people and that the government deserves to be censured.

What has been proved today is that there has been no consultation with Labor Party members. Senator Sterle is now leaving the Senate chamber. He should be here to listen to this, because we know that there has been no consultation. The only consultation that has taken place is that with Senator Bob Brown and the Australian Greens. Senator Milne has proved it herself by putting it on the public record. We know that Senator Brown and Prime Minister Julia Gillard have a very close relationship. We saw that in the press conference last week. There was a big smirk, a big smile, on Senator Brown’s face. He was acting as though he was in charge. Guess what. He was. He got what he wanted: he got the carbon tax. We know that is going to be a killer of Australian jobs. We know there is going to be an increased injection into the cost of living. It is a double whammy for Australian families, for the Australian people.

I want to reflect on this total backflip by Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Just prior to the election, she looked square into the eyes of a reporter and said, ‘There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.’ She did not just say, ‘There will be no carbon tax.’ She said there would be no carbon tax ‘under the government I lead’. That is what she said and she made it very clear, hand on heart. Now she has broken her word, with this great deception on the Australian people. In fact, it is a fraud. The fact is that there should be an election prior to proceeding with this decision. There is no mandate for this carbon tax. They have promised, they have made a commitment and she has broken her word. Integrity for this government has gone out the door. Honesty has gone up in smoke. What are the consequences?

Let me take it back to Tasmania. In Northern Tasmania, down near George Town, for example, we have companies employing hundreds and hundreds of people. We have Rio, TEMCO and hundreds of industrial and manufacturing workplaces. I want to draw to the Senate’s attention the recent comments of Paul Howes, the head of the Australian Workers Union, who is very much doing this for his best interests and the best interests of the Australian Workers Union. Why isn’t he standing up to oppose this carbon tax? In fact he is doing the opposite. Mr Paul Howes is a grub of a man. But he is worse than that: he is a viper in the bosom. He could not care less about the people, about the workers at Rio. He is doing this for vengeance, for the interests of himself and for the interests of the Australian Workers Union. He does not care about the workers and the working families at George Town and other parts of Northern Tasmania.

On record I ask Mr Howes to come clean and say how the carbon tax will help the people and the workers of Rio and to get off his high horse and stop being a viper in the bosom and start acting in the interests of his workers. Then people would have a little more respect for him. What about the people at TEMCO and elsewhere? What about the communities in the rural and regional parts of Tasmania? They are hurting. What about in Scottsdale, where they are going to see a 6½c increase in the price of petrol? What about the $300 to $600 increase in the price of power for the people in Scottsdale? They are already hurting. They need jobs. Unemployment has gone up in the north of Tasmania. This Labor government, with the Greens in control, is trashing the Australian economy in a similar way to that in which the Tasmanian Labor government, with the Greens, is trashing the Tasmanian economy. Enough is enough. We say no. Come clean and be honest and go to an election before bringing in this rotten carbon tax.

Question agreed to.