George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

If the Australian Labor Party were prepared to honour the promises that they themselves took to the election not 14 weeks ago, the carbon tax would be gone by Christmas. Let it never be forgotten that the Labor Party tried to deceive the Australian people at the recent election and actually said, 'One of our promises is to repeal the carbon tax.' We have seen the flyer that Senator Louise Pratt distributed in Western Australia announcing, 'We have repealed the carbon tax.' This is not just the policy that we took to the last election; it is the policy that the Australian Labor Party represented that they were taking to the last election.

Lastly, if the Australian Labor Party and their Greens allies were prepared to do the work that the Australian people sent them to Canberra to do, then the carbon tax would be gone by Christmas and every Australian family would be, on average, $550 a year better off and electricity prices would begin to fall. I think the Australian public would be appalled to learn that it is just too hard for those opposite, the Labor Party and the Greens, to do one more week's work in Canberra before they go on Christmas holidays.

Let me remind you, Mr President, that this parliament adjourned at the end of June this year, and since we adjourned this is only the 10th day on which the Senate has sat to consider public business. We might ask ourselves: why is that? Because there was a political coup on the other side of the parliament. There was a leadership change that instated a new Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, and then there was a long election campaign and a change of government. If the Labor Party and the Greens get their way, we are going to adjourn today after only 10 days in the second half of 2013, and we will not be back for another nine weeks. Yet it is too hard for the Labor Party to sit.