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

No. Can I then turn to the New South Wales right wing, which is still not a reflection on you, I hope, Mr Acting Deputy President! But they are against this tax. I know they are. They know the consequences of it. They are a bit distracted at the moment with the New South Wales election, in which they are about to get a whupping, but the New South Wales right are definitely against this tax. That is pretty much half of the party—the right of the party. They know this is a tax born of the green movement. We are back arguing about how unpopular this tax is in the public eye. Have you already forgotten that? The polls plummeted the last time you tried to introduce the emissions trading scheme/carbon tax—it is all one and the same. We are back arguing about how it will wreck the economy, put pressure on budgets and working families, cost jobs, ruin businesses, send businesses overseas and make exports uncompetitive. We are back arguing that the tax will have zero effect on carbon emissions. We are back arguing that this is a tax that the world has rejected. Copenhagen was a flop. The United States has moved away from an emissions trading scheme or a carbon tax or anything of the sort. India will not introduce it and neither will China.

To add to your nightmare, the old characters are back arguing the point. They have reappeared. Senator Wong is telling us we have to get ahead of the world, the icecaps are melting and the polar bears are falling off the edge. And Senator Evans is still leaning across the table—we are back to that—saying, ‘You’ve played yourself out of the game.’ He said that last time. We were right in the game last time. And it is not a game, but we are right in this, right up to the election. Professor Garnaut is back. Remember him? He wanted all the farmers—this is the idiocy of the man—to switch from cattle and sheep farming—