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

Senator Furner, you might as well do the hokey-pokey. When Australia produces 1.4 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gases—550 million tonnes approximately—you are going to bring on a tax to reduce it by how much? Let us say 100 million tonnes. Let us say that Australia’s production is going to go from 550 million tonnes back to 450 million tonnes. In the meantime, India and China alone by 2020 will be producing another five billion tonnes—‘b’ for billion—and our 100 million tonnes is going to save the Great Barrier Reef and save the world! This is outrageous.

But let us get back to the whole crunch of this matter of public importance and what the Prime Minister, Ms Gillard, said. Let me give you some quotes. My colleague Senator Birmingham has already quoted this. Ms Gillard, in an interview with Jon Faine on 20 March 2009, said:

I think when you go to an election and you give a promise to the Australian people, you should do everything in your power to honour that promise. We are determined to do that. We gave our word to the Australian people in the election, and this is a government that prides itself on delivering election promises. We want Australians to be able to say well, they’ve said this and they did this.

Is that true? No, it is false. Another quote from Ms Gillard comes from the ABC’s Lateline on 16 June 2009:

We’re always there delivering our election promises. That’s important to us. And we’re always there acting in the national interest.

I can give you more. At a press conference on 20 March 2009, Ms Gillard said:

…we will deliver in full the election promise we took to the Australian people—