11-October-2011
Portfolio Media Releases
Topics: Carbon tax vote, Newspoll, Graham Perrett.
E&OE
ANDREW ROBB:
You could not conceive of a worse time to bring in a tax that’s going to affect the price of virtually everything in our economy. You’ve got Europe staggering under the weight of debt, you’ve got the United States struggling to fight off recession and it’s doubtful they will and we’ve got a situation where our comparative advantage will be seriously undermined.
It is going to cost jobs, it’s going to cost industries it’s going to cost so many families their quality of life. It’s going to increase cost of living, it is just madness and it is just political opportunism for this government for this prime minister to continue to go ahead.
It is a time for Labor MPs to get on the right side of history, to show some spine, to show some leadership, to stand up for their electorates, to stay true to the promises and the commitments they made at the last election.
They promised not to introduce a carbon tax and here they are on the cusp of introducing a tax which no one wants, which will cost jobs and which will undermine our economy at a time when the rest of the world or the major developed world is on its knees as far as their economises are concerned.
So we’ve got all of these Labor MPs who purport to support workers, we’ve got leaders in the Labor Party Simon Crean, Martin Ferguson, Bill Shorten all of these people who had a career supporting the workers.
Many of them have been silent, they’ve been silent for months in defence of this tax. It is a bad tax, it is a tax that no one wants, it is a tax that his borne out of deceit, it is a tax that has now become part of defending the leadership of someone whose leadership is dead.
There is a leadership battle on this is a dysfunctional government this is really a most unfortunate period of time for Australia. There is enormous anxiety, this is a dysfunctional government.
People are saving because they are so uncertain about the future they’re concerned not only about their jobs but the jobs of their children and they should be, this tax will hang like a millstone around the neck of the Australian economy.
It will progressively undermine our industries, undermine our jobs undermine our great strengths in this economy which are mining and resources and will see so many jobs go off shore. And MPs have a chance this week to get on the right side of history, Labor MPs and cross the floor and vote against this deadly tax which is going to do so much damage to our economy and to the Australian people.
JOURNALIST:
Will your rejection of the steel package cost jobs?
ANDREW ROBB:
If there is no tax there is no need for a steel package. If we are given the privilege of governing after the next election we will rescind the tax and there will be no need for any steel package.
JOURNALIST:
The steel package does go beyond though, according to the modelling the impact of the tax it does overcompensate.
ANDREW ROBB:
The steel package is there to compensate for the effect of the carbon tax and there will be no need for steel compensation if there is no tax.
In fact there will be no need for compensation to industry across the board.
JOURNALIST:
Are the Coalition giving themselves a bit of pat on the back today considering the latest News Poll figures show that you are selling your message on climate change and asylum seekers?
ANDREW ROBB:
Well, it’s not a source of joy I mean you go to your electorates and the level of uncertainty, the level of anxiety that now pervades the whole community. The sense you get form all of this is that you’ve got a great responsibility to dig in and to do something about it.
And it is such a shame to see that the wonderful opportunities that we are presented with, with China and India are just being wasted. We have wasted the mining boom we are still again this year looking in the middle of a mining boom, we are still looking under this government to spend over $20 billion more than we raise; now how can that be? How can it be that in the middle of the biggest mining boom in our history where we’ve got prices for our exports at 140 year highs and yet this government is still spending $22 billion more than it will raise?
It is this incompetence you just see the games that are being played, the use by the prime minister and the foreign minister of a 14-year-old boy as a political play thing in their contest for the leadership it’s a disgrace.
This government has floundered so many times on so many issues, it’s dysfunctional. How can they go and offend the Indonesians so grossly just a matter of months ago on the live cattle job and now turn around and offend again by the way in which they are playing politics with the prospects of a 14-year-old boy in Indonesia it is a disgrace an absolute disgrace.
They do not deserve to be in government, we need to go to an election, but certainly this carbon tax vote must go to an election, must go to the vote of the people so that they can deliver their verdict.
That is why we are seeing our strengths in the polls, it’s not juts on carbon tax it’s not juts on boat people it’s across every area because this government is a dysfunctional government.
JOUNALIST:
What do you think about Labor MP Graham Perrett’s comment that he’ll bring down the government if Julia Gillard is replaced?
ANDREW ROBB:
It smacks of a Labor MP looking for an excuse to run away from the total mess that this government is in. You get the smell of MPs starting to think at least about how they can leave a sinking ship and I suspect there are many others are thinking what Graham Perrett has said.
JOURNALIST:
They’re not coming out and saying that this morning.
ANDREW ROBB:
You only have to look at the body language week in week out of the Labor politicians sitting behind the prime minister in Question Time the despondency the sense of no direction the despair in many respects.
You can tell that they know that they are breaking the commitments they made at the last election. They are deeply embarrassed about the way in which this government has governed. They are deeply embarrassed about the promises and commitments that have been broken.
They are deeply embarrassed about the deceit that sits behind this carbon tax and it is affecting their psyche day in and day out and many of them I suspect have spent months thinking ‘what am I doing here, what am I doing in this government?’
They are just embarrassed, embarrassed to go back to their electorates and many of them would be thinking what Graham Perrett has articulated and that is he is starting to look for a way out of this sinking ship.
JOURNALIST:
What are your plans today for the carbon tax debate is there any way you can out off the vote?
ANDREW ROBB:
Well we are going to give the government and some of these Labor MPs the opportunity to amend this legislation so that it does not take effect until there is a vote at an election, now that would seem to be a eminently reasonable position given the international uncertainty is so profound given that no one in Australia wants this thing given that major business including the steel industry are coming out this week an insisting that this carbon tax no go through.
So on all of those grounds we will give the parliament the opportunity to guarantee that whatever happens with this tax it won’t be introduced until people have had an opportunity at an election.
JOURNALIST:
Will Malcolm Turnbull be speaking in the debate today?
ANDREW ROBB:
I don’t know.
JOURNALIST:
Would you encourage him to?
ANDREW ROBB:
Well indeed he is very well informed on this subject and he knows full well, he’s just been to Europe for two weeks and has reported to us about how fragile Europe is. He was deeply concerned coming back from Europe about the propensity for major economic collapse in some of the countries in Europe.
Now in that circumstance, to introduce a carbon tax when no one else is around the world, when our one great comparative advantage is still going strongly in the terms of resources and energy, to introduce a tax which is going to be a millstone around the neck of our competitive position is just madness and I think Malcolm was giving us a strong sense of the stupidity of the timing of this tax that we are no voting on this week.