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

You are absolutely right. I suspect she probably will not be your Prime Minister in about five months time. Your Prime Minister went to the last election and lied to the people of Geelong and told them a lie: 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' I can tell you, Mr Deputy President, that in a poll conducted in the Adelaide Advertiser in February of this year some 53 per cent said they did not support a carbon tax. Well over half the people polled of an 800-person poll said they do not support the carbon tax. And we know from published polls elsewhere that there has been further slippage in those who support a carbon tax and a significant increase in those who are opposed to it. No amount of talk from the Australian Labor Party, no amount of spin from the Australian Labor Party, will change that. It includes the latest line, parroted again by the government leader in this chamber, that we will not revoke this carbon tax, that we will not introduce legislation to rid this country of the carbon tax. Every single person on this side of the chamber, as well as the Leader of the Opposition and those in the other place, is absolutely committed to the abolition of a tax that we know will destroy this country. The government leader in the Senate is asking for a bet in relation to whether we will do it. I have got some news for the government leader: do not waste your money, my friend. (Time expired)