Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Denison, as I said, knows the value of a promise from this Prime Minister. He knows all too well, with a document signed in blood by the Prime Minister to support mandatory precommitment. What happens when the pressure is on? We just walk away. With friends like that, who needs enemies?

The Australian people now know exactly how much a promise from this Prime Minister is worth. That is why I concur with my colleague the member for Brisbane, who said, 'What is needed now is an election'—and it very much is. The people of Australia are sick of broken promises. The people of Australia are sick of having a Prime Minister they can no longer trust. The people of Australia are sick of hollow words. We heard all too clearly her promise in relation to the carbon tax, and many people trusted the Prime Minister at that time, to their detriment. Small businesses in my electorate are very concerned about that broken promise on carbon tax. The tourism industry in my electorate is very concerned about that broken promise in relation to the carbon tax. Unfortunately, the carbon tax which we were not going to have and which we are getting on 1 July is going to make it much more difficult for those businesses to survive and compete with competitors overseas. It is of great concern. We are seeing a total lack of confidence out in the community, and a major driver of that lack of confidence is that people have no faith in this government. The small business community has dramatically lost faith in business conditions and in this government because they see a government that is not in control. They see a government that is out of control and is too busy fighting itself to be concerned about the issues that are important.

Increasing prices are flowing through to aviation. Qantas is having to increase its fares. Those fare increases have already taken effect for flights after 1 July, and that is going to have an adverse effect on travel to my electorate in the very important tourism industry. We see other countries defending their airlines against a ridiculous carbon tax. We see the Chinese and the Americans standing up for their airline industries. But what does our Prime Minister do? She just rolls over and plays dead. We do not mind slugging our aviation industry with a carbon tax. We do not mind one bit. We do not care if it is going to put people out of work. We do not care if it is going to have an adverse effect on our tourism industry. We are going to sit there and do nothing in relation to international airlines and we are going to actively work against our airline industry in relation to our local carriers. Many airlines around the world will be flying carbon tax free. Their governments were wise enough to realise that this is a tax that is bad for our country and that is not going to improve the environment one bit. Let me quote the words of Professor Garnaut in relation to the price rises under a carbon tax. Professor Garnaut said:

These higher prices will require households to spend a greater proportion of their incomes to obtain the same goods and services purchased before the introduction of an emissions price. This will reduce households’ real incomes and purchasing power.

I could not agree with him more. He has really belled the cat. This will reduce households' real incomes and purchasing power. Thank you to this government. Thank you to the Independents for supporting this carbon tax, which is so unpopular in their electorates.

What does the government say? They say: 'Don't worry. Some of you will be 20c a week better off.' The Prime Minister says, 'Trust me.' Twenty cents a week better off! If I were the member for Denison I would not be trusting the Prime Minister that you could be 20c a week better off. If I were the average Australian I would not be trusting this Prime Minister that I would be 20c a week better off. If I were a small business person, apart from the impact on my business I would be very concerned about that 20c margin of error. Twenty cents! This is a government that said we were going to have a $22 billion deficit this year, and it blew out to $37 billion. They were out billions and billions in their budget forecast, yet their forecast in relation to the adequacy of compensation—and we will get to compensation in a moment—depends on a margin of error of 20c. I think average Australians are, rightfully, worried about this. As I said, they do not trust this Prime Minister and they certainly would not trust a 20c margin of error.

Another issue that is of great concern is the wasteful spending in the NBN. The coalition agrees there is a need for high-speed broadband. Every Australian should have access to high-speed broadband. We saw a project which, in the true way this government does things, started off at $4.3 billion—fibre to the node; a fairly workable solution. But then there was a rethink. A feasibility study was done by Senator Conroy and the then Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, on the back of a drink coaster on a flight to Perth, and what did we get? A $4.3 billion project blew out to a $50 billion project almost overnight. That would have to be the mother of all cost overruns.

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