Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Leader of the Opposition) (14:54): I move: That so much of standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the member for Warringah moving immediately— That this House calls upon the Prime Minister to come clean with the Australian people, our forgotten families, the manufacturing sector, our exporters, our small businesses and our farmers and: (1) own up to the following fact, that yes: (a) she did say, five days before the last election, "there will be no carbon tax under the Government I lead"; (b) she did say, one day before the election, "I rule out a carbon tax"; (c) she did promise there would be no carbon tax without a "deep and lasting community consensus"; (d) around the world, our global competitors, Russia, Japan, Canada and the US, are walking away from the next round of Kyoto carbon-cuts; and (2) that as Prime Minister, she should declare, "yes, I won’t introduce a carbon tax without first seeking a mandate at a new election". It is necessary to suspend— Mr Fitzgibbon: Mr Speaker, on a point of order: I certainly do not raise this to put any additional and unnecessary pressure on you, but it is very clear, and I am sure you would agree, that I easily was on my feet before the Leader of the Opposition. I would have thought that, if he really wanted to have a debate on climate change, he would have been quicker to his feet. The SPEAKER: There is no point of order. The Leader of the Opposition. Mr ABBOTT: It is necessary to suspend standing orders because this matter cannot wait. It cannot wait and standing orders must be suspended because this is a Prime Minister who is happy to listen to actors but she will not listen to voters. She wants to say yes to celebrities, but she will not say yes to the people of Australia by having an election on this topic. She will listen to actors and she will listen to celebrities, but one of the people she would not listen to is the foreign minister, who is now walking out of the chamber. None of us are surprised that he is walking out of the chamber, because she would not listen to him either before the last election. She would not listen to him when he wanted an emissions trading scheme, instead she destroyed his prime ministership and lied to the Australian people at the election we had in the middle of last year. The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition will be very careful. Mr ABBOTT: I take your admonition, Mr Speaker. What did this Prime Minister say to the Australian people before the election? Putting her hands on her heart she said, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' That is why this suspension cannot wait. She has got to explain herself. What did the Treasurer say to the Australian people before the election? He said that my claim that as sure as night follows day there will be a carbon tax if this government is re-elected was a hysterical exaggeration. It is so hysterical that it is exactly what this government is doing and that is why this suspension of standing orders cannot wait. This Prime Minister went to the Australian people saying: 'There will not be a carbon tax. There will not be an emissions trading scheme. What there will be is a climate change people's convention.' That is what she said. That is what she took to the Australian people and nothing would happen, she said, until there was a deep and lasting consensus. That is what the Prime Minister took to the Australian people. She reckons she has got a consensus because she has got a deal with the Greens. We had the climate change people's convention on the weekend. It consisted of just five people: two Greens, two Independents and one Labor minister to take the Greens' instructions back to the cabinet. That is no people's convention; that is a fraud on the Australian people and that is why it is important that we suspend standing orders. I think that it is very important that the actors and the celebrities of this country should have their say. People who live in ecomansions have a right to be heard, they really do. People who are worth $53 million have a right to be heard, but their voice should not be heard ahead of the voice of the ordinary working people of this country. Their voice should not be heard ahead of the forgotten families of this country. It is one of the fundamental principles of our democracy that everyone's voice is equal. You do not give special weight to celebrities, you do not give special weight to people who live half the year in Hollywood, where there is no carbon tax, and you do not give special weight even to former leaders of the Liberal Party. You give weight to the voice of the Australian people. That is why it is so important that we should suspend standing orders, and that is why this matter cannot wait. I say to the Prime Minister, who typically has scuttled out of this chamber, that you will not be able to avoid the voice of the Australian people for that much longer. The Prime Minister should stop thinking that a handful of celebrities somehow represent the voice of the Australian people. She should not be frightened of their voice. If she is so certain that her arguments on climate change and a carbon tax are so right, she should listen to the Australian people. She should give them a chance to say yes or no, as the case may be. She should stop thinking that the only people who count are the people who agree with her. Why it is so important that we suspend standing orders, and why this matter cannot wait, is that this government's carbon tax will be a massive hit on the standard of living of the forgotten families of our country. It will lead to a 25 per cent increase in power prices, a 6½c a litre increase in private petrol prices, a five per cent increase in grocery prices, a $6,000 increase in the price of a new home and, as we discovered today, at least a $12,000 a year increase in the price of running a farm—and that is at just $20 a tonne. If the government's carbon tax goes ahead, at least 16 coalmines will close, 23,000 jobs will be lost in the mining industry and 45,000 jobs will be lost in the manufacturing industry. The SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition will return to the suspension. Mr ABBOTT: We must suspend standing orders because the 126,000 workers in regional Australia whose jobs will be in jeopardy if this carbon tax goes ahead deserve to be heard. What has this Prime Minister got against the manufacturing workers of our country that makes her want to destroy manufacturing by putting on our industries burdens that will not be borne by any of our competitors? We heard a lot today from the Prime Minister about the Prime Minister of Great Britain. What she did not tell us about is the escape clause that David Cameron put in his statement the other day that, if in 2014 no other country is doing what is proposed, he will revise his targets down. What we should see is a bit of honesty from this Prime Minister, who if she was fair dinkum would say to the Australian people: 'All right, I deceived you before the election. I want to make an honest politician of myself by going to you and saying, "Give me a mandate for this tax."' The Prime Minister says there will be compensation, but of course she has overpromised the compensation. You cannot give all of it to households and half of it to industry. The fact is that there will never be enough compensation for this carbon price, because you cannot compensate people who have lost their jobs as a result of this Prime Minister's toxic tax. The tax will be permanent, the compensation will be temporary and the tax will just go up and up. It must be $40 a tonne, according to the Greens, if it is going to drive a shift from coal to gas. It must be $100 a tonne, according to the Greens, to drive a shift from fossil fuels to renewables. We know who is running this government when it comes to this policy. It is not the Prime Minister; it is Senator Bob Brown. When the Prime Minister said, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead,' did she mislead the Australian people or is the carbon tax an admission that the real Prime Minister of this country is Senator Bob Brown? The Prime Minister should get up on her feet and answer those questions. If she does not, the charge against her will be that not only did she deceive the people but also she has got no guts and she has got no ticker. (Time expired) The SPEAKER: Is the motion seconded?