Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I think they are going to wimp out, as Senator Williams said. They will wimp out when the time comes. It must have absolutely galled the senator to sit there and watch Senator Brown with that smirk on his face this morning. What motivates those people on the other side? What drives them in a situation like this? Have they not got the guts to stand up for this country and for the working men and women who deserve no less than a government who is not prepared to wash them away in the interests of one person's job?

I have some options for them, and I think these are probably options that they have thought about. Why not do the right thing and let the next election be an effective plebiscite on this toxic tax? Why not call an election? They can do what they like with their leader—we are not remotely interested in what is driving the Australian Labor Party. The Australian people are not remotely interested in the petty little leadership disputes of those opposite. They are not interested; they do not care. What they do care about is being lied to. What they do care about is a toxic tax that will potentially destroy their jobs. That is what they want to know about.

If the government thinks this tax is so good, why not call an election now? Why not make it a plebiscite on the carbon tax? Then we will have the decision and we can put their petty little leadership disputes behind us and get on with running this country properly. Why not take up the challenge and go to the polls? Why not do it? I think I know the answer. I suspect there are plenty on the other side in the other place who will not be here in that case. I suspect if the government keep on pursuing what they are doing then in the separate half-Senate election a few senators will be going as well. The government should go to the polls and let the Australian people make a decision about this. They can justify it because they were elected on the back of a lie. It is easy to go back and get some clarification from the Australian people about whether this government would have been elected had the people been given the opportunity to cast their vote on a carbon tax.

If they are not prepared to do that I will give them another suggestion. Why not see out the term, get on with the job of running this country, sort out their leadership dispute and tell the Australian people that they will delay implementation of this toxic tax until after the election, making it a plebiscite in two years time. They should do one or the other but they should not impose on the Australian community a tax that they know is well ahead of the rest of the world. They should not impose on this community a toxic carbon tax that is going to risk our economic recovery and potentially put us to the back of the pack again. They should just do the right thing and stop concentrating on themselves. They need to stop this self-indulgent claptrap in relation to who wants the Prime Minister's job. Forget about that. It has been destabilising this government for the last six months. It has put the government in complete and utter policy paralysis. It is driving them to introduce a potentially job-destroying, economy-destroying, toxic carbon tax. They should just do the right thing and go to the polls. They need to let us have a decision on the community's views about this carbon tax.

I do not think there is one person on this side of the chamber who would not say that we would respect the outcome of the community's views in relation to this matter, but we have no respect for a government who imposed a tax of on the back of a lie and who did not give the Australian community the opportunity to vote on this particular matter. They must do the right thing and go to the polls, and then we will see whether this tax is or is not supported by the community. If it is, we will get on with it. If it is not—which is my strong suspicion and, I suspect, the strong suspicion of those 72 members and those on the other side of the chamber—then let us drop it. Let us do the right thing and just get back to running this country again, please.