Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Whatever else you say about me, I am not catatonic! So I thank Senator Cameron for his contribution, and I might confine my contribution to Senator Singh's question. As Senator Abetz said in his excellent opening answer in question time today, 66 out of the 76 senators elected to this place were elected on the basis of 'no carbon tax'. Yet here we are, seemingly in a parallel universe, still debating the same issue, after all this time. You talk about legislative mandates—and perhaps that is thrown about a bit too much in this place. But if there has ever been a legislative mandate in the time I have been in this parliament, it is to repeal the carbon tax. Even today The Australian on the front page had a survey: again, the vast majority of Australians say 'Get rid of the carbon tax.'

Why? Fundamentally, the carbon tax will not lower global temperatures but it will lead to higher costs for Australian industry and Australian consumers and will make for a less competitive economy. That is why we have had this debate between the coalition, the Greens and the Labor Party over the last eight or nine years.

To summarise: Labor and the Greens lost, and the coalition and the Australian public won. This tax will go. Any impost of $9,000 million to the economy coming from a carbon tax has to go. This is at a time with escalating public debt—a public debt trap left by the Labor Party after their six years in office—skyrocketing public debt and, at the same time, they are opposing getting rid of the carbon tax, which makes is harder for Australian industry. The hypocrisy and the lack of responsibility is absolutely breathtaking.

I saw last Friday a quote in the editorial in The Australian from Dr Martin Parkinson who, as you know, is the Secretary of the Treasury. He said that if we remain on this public debt trajectory, Australia will be in inevitable decline. That is a fact, and yet this lot want to make it harder to get rid of the carbon tax. That is pretty sensible, isn't it? Only the Australian Labor Party would do that.

The entire genesis of Labor's failure to deal with carbon policy goes right back to the moral vanity of Kevin Rudd. If he had not been so stupid and so morally vain as to seek to impose on this country—my country—before anywhere else in the world an ETS, we would not be in this ridiculous situation that we are in now. He was far more concerned with running around with Al Gore and Ban Ki-moon all those years ago than he ever was about sensible carbon policy. It is the most disgraceful, self-centred and morally vain performance by a Prime Minister in my time. I have never seen anything like it, and it was pathetic. He so skewed public debate in this country that he we are right now still debating this issue.

The politics of photo opportunity and moral vanity took over from sensible public policy. It was absolutely pathetic and that should be engraved on the tombstone of Kevin Rudd's political career—the absolute moral vanity to commit Australia to an ETS prior to the Copenhagen climate change conference, and that act of political bastardry has set this nation on this course over the last six years. It is a disgrace, and we should never, ever forget the genesis of this entire debate. I certainly will never let the Labor Party or Kevin Rudd forget it.

In the end, if it was such a good idea, we would have all those other countries, those resource-rich countries, those trade exposed countries like Brazil, Russia, India, China, the United States and Canada in favour. Not one of them has made a commitment in the last seven years. Why would that be? Because they know it is not in their national interest, and this lot hate that they have not been able to sell the fact that this policy is in the national interest because it is not. It harms our national interest and it is a disgrace that they still oppose the carbon tax. (Time expired)