Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to oppose the amendment moved by the Leader of the Opposition. I find the hypocrisy of his argument absolutely outstanding. This is a man who stood there today and said, 'The Prime Minister was untruthful before the election.' This is a man who said that you cannot believe anything he says unless he writes it down. Then, when he does write it down, he still goes against it. It is absolute hypocrisy. The member for Flinders quoted the Australian article—but of course, in typical fashion for the opposition, they do not let the truth get in the way of a good story: 'Let's give only half a quote.' The Prime Minister was very clear and concise in saying that she would not rule out a carbon pollution reduction scheme—a market mechanism. That is what we went to the election with. We said that before the election. I attended a forum before the election to which the Liberal Party—the shadow minister and the local candidate—were invited and never turned up. They would not even front up to it. I strongly support taking action against pollution, and I do that because I want to do the right thing by our kids.

This is not about today, tomorrow or some rubbishy amendment that says, 'Call an election on everything.' You would have to ask: what is it about? It is about our future. It is about making sure that our kids and our grandkids have a clean future. It is about making sure they have an opportunity to continue farming, to continue manufacturing and to continue to have the life that we enjoy here in Australia—and to do it in a cleaner, greener future. These are the things that those opposite fail to understand.

If you listen to the arguments that the opposition put forward, the only thing they are saying is, 'If we make a big policy we should go to an election.' Under that theory you would expect that an Abbott government would have an election every single week. Every time they made a decision they would have to go to an election. It is absolutely silly to say that this amendment is genuinely about doing the right thing for this nation and the right thing for the people in this country. We, on the other hand, have been very clear. We have supported putting a price on pollution. We have done that from day one and we continue to do it. And we do it knowing that it is about delivering a better future for this country. We do it by supporting households. We are supporting households by making sure that nine out of 10 households will receive assistance for any price adjustments. We know that some things will go up and some things will go down. We know that the cost of electricity over the last decade, particularly in Victoria, has gone up dramatically. Why has it gone up dramatically? Because those opposite sold off the SEC, they took away all the investment that was coming from there—the jobs—and they left the Latrobe Valley an absolute wreck. They took the money and ran and left no investment in electricity infrastructure. That infrastructure is failing, it is breaking down, and that is what is causing the rise in the price of electricity. It has continued to rise every year and it will continue to do so, because of the failures of those opposite, because of their selling everything off—selling off the farm—

Mr Hunt interjecting—

You sold it off! You went straight through and sold it off. You sit there and say, 'Hang on a minute.' The SEC delivered $400 million net to the state of Victoria every year. It also employed a lot of people and trained a lot of apprentices. Because of the failures of Liberal governments and stripping those things away, we ended up with the skills shortage that we have today. We do not have the apprentices trained in the trades that we need.

I support what the government have done and I am very proud to see that the vote went through today. I actually support jobs and I support industry. You might scoff over there, but I notice that you backed away very quickly and you would not support the steel industry. You do not support keeping jobs in this country. You actually go out there every day, put your hard hat on, get your silly little photo taken and say, 'Look at me: I'm backing the workers.' There is not a worker in this country that believes for one minute that Tony Abbott cares a damn about them. They know that as soon as he gets back in power, the first thing he will do—along with his National Party mates—is to rip the guts out of workers' wages and conditions. You know it is true, because your own backbenchers are saying it—the same backbenchers who are saying, 'Let's put GST on food.' That is exactly what will happen. You will go out of your way to rip workers' rights and conditions away. Everyone knows that you do not give a damn about them, and that is why these amendments should not be supported. (Time expired)

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