Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to take note of answers provided in question time today. To paraphrase William Shakespeare, methinks the government doth protest too much. I'm not sure that's exactly my best iambic pentameter, but it is relevant to this debate this afternoon all the same, because those in this government are so tetchy whenever anyone starts talking about their cozy relationship with the Greens. They will come into this place and suggest that there's nothing to see here and that there's no way that they would ever entertain a power-sharing arrangement with the Greens in the minority parliament that it looks like we could be heading for. But Australians know better. Australians remember the dark days of Labor-Greens minority government between 2010 and 2013.

Indeed, people in my home state of Tasmania know exactly what our state was like the last time at a state level Labor was in a governing relationship with the Greens. Unemployment goes through the roof when Labor governs with the Greens. That's no surprise, because in that situation the Greens use their leverage with their Labor counterparts to shut down industries that their inner-city voters want to see shut down, such as the forestry industry and the aquaculture industry—job-creating industries that contribute so much to our regional economies, particularly in my home state of Tasmania. The Greens want to see those industries shut down, and when they are in a power-sharing relationship with Labor, when they are in government with Labor, they are the first industries on the chopping block. The first element of the deal that Labor will strike with the Greens is to shut down these industries.

It is a crying shame, and I don't ever want to see our country go back to a situation where this is occurring left, right and centre. I don't want to see a return to the bad old days of 2010, 2011 and 2012, at both the state and federal level—in Tasmania, at least—with Labor and the Greens working together to decimate our economy and destroy regional jobs. I don't think that there is any question in my mind that they didn't have the best interests of Australians at heart.

I note that earlier today, during two-minute statements, almost all of the government contributions were insisting that there was nothing to see here and that there is no relationship with the Greens. Members of the government will come in here and insist on this time and time again, but I guarantee you that, after the next election, if there is minority government then it will be Labor doing a deal with the Greens to be able to continue to govern.

It's frankly time that the government was more upfront with Australians about those intentions. As my colleague Senator Brockman said, we heard ministers trying not to address the question of what is going to happen after the next election in terms of the relationship between Labor and the Greens. It's time for the government to be upfront with Australians, but, realistically, can we expect them to be upfront with Australians? Can we expect them to not break a promise that they might make during an election campaign or indeed during this term of government?

The reason I say that is that we saw during the last election many promises made by this government that have not been kept. They promised to reduce power bills by $275. They promised it numerous times during the election campaign and failed to mention it now because they know that they broke that promise to Australians. They promised that families would be better off. They promised that mortgages would be cheaper. But we know that interest rates have gone up on average every second month of this term of the government. There is no doubt that this government made many promises to Australians at the last election that they have since broken. Even if they promise to not get into bed with the Greens if we're in a minority parliament situation after the next election, I frankly don't think that they can be trusted to stick to that promise either.