Senate debates
Wednesday, 12 October 2011
Bills
Clean Energy Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Income Tax Rates Amendments) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Household Assistance Amendments) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Tax Laws Amendments) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Fuel Tax Legislation Amendment) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Customs Tariff Amendment) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Excise Tariff Legislation Amendment) Bill 2011, Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas (Import Levy) Amendment Bill 2011, Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas (Manufacture Levy) Amendment Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Unit Shortfall Charge — General) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Unit Issue Charge — Auctions) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Unit Issue Charge — Fixed Charge) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (International Unit Surrender Charge) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Charges — Customs) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Charges — Excise) Bill 2011, Clean Energy Regulator Bill 2011, Climate Change Authority Bill 2011; First Reading
3:57 pm
Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source
At first blush what the government is seeking to do by acknowledging the transmission of the message from the House of Representatives and seeking to have these clean energy bills proceed without formalities and taken together looks fairly unremarkable. But this is a very unusual circumstance. Never in my knowledge of Australian political history, which is reasonably extensive, has a government so blatantly broken faith with the Australian people. There was a clear and unequivocal commitment by the Prime Minister to not introduce a carbon tax. All Labor senators and all coalition senators in this chamber who were up for election at the half-Senate election in 2010 presented themselves on the platform of not introducing a carbon tax—as, for that matter, did every member of the Australian Labor Party in the other place and as for that matter did every member of the coalition in the other place.
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