Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

This is a Prime Minister desperate to tell us that she is a strong leader but she cannot tell us what she is strong for. Strong for what? Is it a $26 a tonne carbon price; is it a $45 a tonne carbon price? If this Prime Minister is to have any leadership credentials whatsoever, she needs to tell us exactly what she wants. She needs to tell us exactly what she proposes. She needs to explain clearly and succinctly what she actually has in mind to the Australian people. Otherwise, if she cannot do it, last week’s horrifically confused and muddled press conference—when the Greens and others hijacked the Prime Ministerial courtyard, hijacked the leadership of the nation—will be the start of a long period of uncertainty for the businesses, workers and households of Australia.

Let us be absolutely crystal clear about what the Prime Minister is promising. It did not go to cabinet or caucus, because if it had gone to cabinet or to caucus her colleagues would have said, ‘Don’t make an announcement until you have something to announce,’ because all she has to announce at the moment is a great big new tax and she cannot tell us anything about that tax. Why did this happen? This happened because this Prime Minister is not in charge of her own government. Remember her words, ‘There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.’ Well there is a carbon tax—there certainly is a carbon tax coming. We know there is a carbon tax coming, because we know that this government is really led by the leader of the Greens, Senator Brown. The real leader of this government is Senator Brown. Labor is in office, but the Greens are in power.

We know that the jobs that the Treasurer read out are based on a $45 a tonne carbon price. We know that the modelling that the Treasury used for the emissions trading scheme was based on a $26 a tonne carbon price. The Greens did not like that. They rejected that scheme because the $26 a tonne carbon price was too low. They said the price had to be higher. But even at $26 a tonne that is a $300 a year hit to families’ electricity bills if the Australian Industry Group is right. It is a $500 a year hit on families’ electricity bills, if the New South Wales government Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal is right; and it is a 6.5 per cent a litre hit on petrol bills, if the Australian Institute of Petroleum is right. A carbon price of $26 a tonne will cost 126,000 jobs in regional Australia, if access Economics is right; it will close down 16 coal mines and cost 10,000 jobs in coal, if ACIL is right; it will cost 24,000 jobs in mining generally, if Concept Economics is right; and it will cost 45,000 jobs in the energy intensive sector, if Frontier Economics is right—and that is on $26 a tonne, not the $45 a tonne that the Treasurer let out of the bag today with his claims about extra jobs in renewable energy that would be created under this tax.

If $26 a tonne is not right, if $45 a tonne is not right, well, Prime Minister, tell us what it is. The nation is pregnant with anticipation. The nation wants to know exactly what this threat to our prosperity really is. And if the Prime Minister cannot tell us what it is, take it off the table. Do not threaten us with something until you know exactly what you want to threaten us with. What is crystal clear is that this carbon tax is designed to put up prices—it is designed to make it too expensive for people to turn on their air-conditioners and too expensive for people to drive their cars. It is designed to change our economy. It is designed to put the coal industry out of business. That is precisely what it is meant to do. And if it is not, Prime Minister, tell us what it is meant to do, because if you cannot explain it, obviously it is there to stop people turning on their air-conditioners, to stop people driving their cars and to put the great Australian coal industry out of business. It is economic vandalism. It is designed to destroy the manufacturing sector of this country. You tell us, Prime Minister, about your plan. Stop hallucinating and fantasising about the perfectly good plan that the coalition took to the last election, which will boost jobs and which will cut carbon emissions.

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