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Thursday, 9 February 2012
Page: 584

Senator MASON (Queensland) (15:13): I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance and Deregulation (Senator Wong) to questions without notice asked by Senators Brandis and Birmingham today relating to the carbon tax.

Surprise, surprise, shock horror! In trying to sell their great, big, new carbon tax to an unsuspecting and unwilling public, the government has failed to comply with its own financial management regulations. Do you believe that, Mr Deputy President? Well, they have. I understand that in one particular case tenders were open for 1½ hours. It does not sound to me like the Prime Minister's much lauded, 'Let the sun shine in,' and, 'Accountability is the foremost goal of this government,' assurances have been met. Not a very good start, I would say.

The Auditor-General also found that the campaign has not been very effective. There would not be anyone in our nation who is surprised to hear that. It is like trying to sell a dog's breakfast, yet it is a dog's breakfast that the Prime Minister said would never be served up to the Australian public, and it has not been successful.

Apparently, as the newspapers tell us, the campaign thus far has cost about $20 million and there is about another $10 million to spend. As you know, Mr Deputy President, I like to be helpful. I suspect it might assist the government not to spend the final $10 million and instead to put it into trying to pay off the budget deficit. That is what I would be doing with the extra $10 million. Of course, none of this money—the $20 million or the $10 million following—comes any­where near the cost to this country of the most expensive carbon tax in the world. The government's carbon tax will raise $7.7 billion in the first year, and that is at $23 per tonne of carbon. But, by 2014-15, it will cost $9.2 billion a year.

What do Labor love? Labour love three things: they love taxing, they love debt and they love the churn. You have heard me on debt before, Mr Deputy President. There has not been one federal Labor government since 1901 that has left government with more money in the kitty than there was when they came in. Since 1901, they have always put Australia further into debt. So Labor love taxing, they love debt and they love the churn. These are the three steps to social democracy. But social democracy has failed in western Europe, and it will fail in Australia.

Many mischievous arguments have been put in favour of the carbon tax. Perhaps the most mischievous—and the most pathetic—argument, which has been put by too many people in the Labor Party, including the minister and the Prime Minister, is this: irre­spective of whether other countries introduce a price on carbon, it is in Australia's interest to have one. I say that again—this lot says that, irrespective of whether any other count­ry on earth has a carbon tax, it is in our interest to have one. Who in this country except this lot believes that absolute rubbish? They believe that, even if no other country on earth prices carbon, it is in our interest to pay more money for energy and for our cost of living to go up. If it were such a sterling idea, don't you think that some other nation would have come up with this brilliant brainwave? They would all be running to do it before us. The United States, Canada, Brazil, Russia, India and China would all be running to do it before us; yet not one of them has done so. That is because they know that moving first in the world on carbon is a mistake. It is a mistake because it is against their national interest, just as it is against our national interest.

The greatest disgrace of this government is this: they want to be heroes overseas—to look good at the UN and elsewhere—and they are quite prepared to sell out Australia's national interest to do so. That makes me sick.