Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was going to make the point about a point of law, which Senator Cash is an expert in. If you made a statement like that, that is a verbal contract in the private sector. If you say that in business, that is a legal point of law. Prior to that, four days before that, she said on Channel 10, ‘There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.’ It could not be clearer than that. You cannot read anything in or out of that.

I happen to have been in the Senate at the time that Paul Keating was Prime Minister, and that Prime Minister wore the backdown on his tax cuts after the 1993 election, tax cuts he promised during the 1993 election, advertised tax cuts, promised tax cuts; he boasted about those tax cuts. So when he backed down, that was the end of his prime ministership. I am sure, Mr Acting Deputy President Forshaw, you would agree with me. You were around at that time, if I remember rightly. When there is a lie or a backflip and when it is big enough and when it is said often enough, the Australian people will not forget. They never forgot Paul Keating and they will not forget this Prime Minister. In the words of Wayne Goss—