Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I speak in favour of this motion, which has been very well drafted and makes an extremely important point, and I thank Senator Fifield for the opportunity. It is important to note here that we have a government that has broken its promise not only to the parliament but also to the Australian people. We have a Prime Minister who stared into a television camera—looked down the barrel—and said with deception in her eyes, ‘There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.’ Not only that, just a few days before the federal election she said that ‘there will be no tax’ and that was put on the front page of the Australian on 20 August 2010: ‘I rule out a carbon tax.’

These were bald-faced statements and now it is true that many in the community are giving the Prime Minister, Ms Julia Gillard, the name Ju-liar. People can draw their own conclusions from that but clearly there has been a shocking deception and the public has come to that understanding. What was promised before the election and what has happened since the election? There was a promise before the election with the Independents—the country Independents—for a tax summit by 30 June, yet we found out just in the last 24 hours that it has been put off until October. That is yet another broken promise. The Prime Minister promised before the last election that she supported a citizens’ assembly to try to garner consensus on the issue of climate change and the merit of a carbon tax, or an emissions trading scheme, or something similar. Of course, that has now gone out the door. Two weeks ago we had the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Mr Combet, and the Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government, Mr Crean, both advocating for and on behalf of the government—one assumes, because they are ministers—that 100 per cent of this tax revenue would be provided in compensation for households and for pensioners. Yet we find out, again in the last 24 hours, that that is not the case. It is not going to be the case at all. They say it will be about 50 per cent. So who is stating the truth? Who are we to believe? We do not know whether to believe it before the election or even less than 12 months after the election. People are breaking their word for and on behalf of the government; it is not good enough. This government is a government of dishonesty and incompetence. That is not acceptable and the Australian people will no doubt send a message at the appropriate time.

The Prime Minister’s view of Senator Bob Brown is a matter for her. She has said that Senator Brown is very calculating. In a keynote address to the Don Dunstan Foundation in Adelaide, she said that Senator Brown leads a party which is extreme. Why would the government form an alliance and a coalition agreement with an extreme party like that? As to why she has broken her promise, her excuse is that there are changed circumstances, that she is now forced into an agreement with the Greens. She is really making it very clear: ‘the Greens made me do it’. That excuse is on a similar par to the excuse that the dog ate my homework. She is saying, ‘I have no responsibility; all care, no responsibility. I am not responsible for my actions.’ Frankly, this is not good enough.

She is now joined at the hip with the Greens in this federal coalition arrangement—the Labor-Green coalition. That is very interesting because as a Tasmanian senator, I know what has happened in Tasmania as a result of the Labor-Green coalition down there. The effect on of the Tasmanian people of incompetence, waste and mismanagement is something shocking. Even just a number of weeks ago, the Premier of Tasmania, Lara Giddings, indicated that she wanted to cut $270-odd million from the Tasmanian budget and thousands of public sector jobs. She should have apologised in the first place and said, ‘I am ashamed of the mismanagement of the economy by my state Labor-Green government.’ Now the economy is suffering as a result. Confidence is at a rock-bottom, all-time low. The Labor-Green experiment in Tasmania is not working. My federal colleagues in this parliament and people on the mainland should be fully aware of that fact and know that the economy in Tasmania is slowing and that levels of confidence are way down. Learn the lesson and do not just blame the Greens and say that ‘they made me do it’. It is not good enough.

Senator Crossin said in this place—and other Labor members and senators have made this point publicly, including the Prime Minister—that the polluters pay. That is absolute and arrant nonsense. Guess who pays? Australian families—mums and dads, households, kids. Everybody will pay not just the polluters. Let me give you the evidence.