Senator CASH (Western Australia) (11:01): I, too, stand here to support the motion put forward by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. The reality for Australians today is that if the Prime Minister of Australia, the Australian Labor Party, the Labor Party members in the other place and the Labor Party senators in this place actually stood by the very clear promise made by the Australian Labor Party the day before the election that there would be no carbon tax under a Labor government then we would not be standing here today debating this motion put forward by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate—but we are. We are here for a very, very disappointing reason. Each of the Labor Party members who were elected at the last election and each of the Labor Party senators who were elected at the last election were elected on the basis of a blatant lie. That lie—the statement made by the now Prime Minister of Australia the day before the 2010 election—will haunt the Prime Minister to her political grave. Recently, I was at a community fair in the electorate of Brand. Those in Western Australia who live in the seat of Brand will know that it is currently held by Mr Gray, the Special Minister of State. At the community fair, I had a petition. It was a 'no carbon tax' petition. Within one hour of walking around the fair, I had collected in excess of 250 signatures. But what is worse for Mr Gray is that I did not have to go around asking for the signatures. I had people coming up to me, saying: 'Thank goodness we found you. Can we please put our name to your petition.' I would ask them why, and they would say: 'Because we don't like being lied to. That is exactly what the Australian Labor Party did to us the day before the election. They lied to us, and we don't like being treated as fools.' They also said: 'We will never be voting Labor again.' I had over 250 signatures in an hour. The majority of people who signed the petition found me; I did not have to go out and find them. What was the lie? Let us just put it on the record again. The lie was the Prime Minister of Australia saying just before the election, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' Senator Abetz: Nothing could be clearer. Senator CASH: That is exactly right, Senator Abetz, nothing could be clearer: 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' Yet, look at where we are today, on 31 October 2011. We are having to debate the suspension of standing orders to give every single member on the other side an opportunity to redeem themselves—an opportunity to say to the Australian people, 'What we said the day before the election we actually meant.' But do you think they will do that? Absolutely not. The Australian people would expect nothing less from those on the other side. Why is that? Because the Australian Labor Party will always take the cheap political option instead of doing what is right in relation to the national interest. The policy that the Labor Party are asking the Senate to vote on today is all economic pain for no environmental gain. It is not senators on this side who are saying that. The Australian Labor Party's own documentation, which they have released, on the impact of the carbon tax clearly shows that, after this toxic tax is imposed on the people of Australia, jobs will go offshore while electricity prices will increase, and emissions in Australia will also increase. You really need to ask yourself why the Australian Labor Party are imposing such a toxic tax on the people of Australia when the Australian Labor Party's own modelling clearly shows that this tax has nothing to do with the environment; it is all about filling a big black hole.