Senator RONALDSON (Victoria) (12:02): I will say a few words in relation to this debate to exempt certain bills from the provisions of the cut-off order. I thank my colleagues on this side of the chamber for their contributions but I ask: where is Senator Bob Brown, the great saviour of Australian democracy? Scurrying out of here with that insipid smirk that we saw on his face this morning—a deceitful smirk from a politician who does not deserve the title of senator. I want to talk about something else today and I invite colleagues and those people who are listening to watch the footage of the carbon tax going through the other place this morning. They will see a bevy of kisses for the Prime Minister and others involved in this deceit. I say to the Australian Labor Party that you had a kiss in the other place this morning but it was the kiss of death for this government. How the Australian Labor Party members in the other place could not constrain themselves is beyond me because that footage will be replayed and replayed and replayed. That was a kiss of success based on a lie. It was a kiss of success based on deceit and a complete, utter fabrication given to the Australian people before the last election. It has been said today, and I will say it again for the benefit of those in the gallery: six days out from the election, the Prime Minister promised the Australian people that there would not be a carbon tax under a government led by her. The Manager of Opposition Business has referred to that debate. The Leader of the Opposition in the Senate has referred to that. Senators Macdonald, Nash and others have referred to that today. Mr Acting Deputy President, I ask you to go back and check your emails because I think you will find what I have just found in the last hour—that the level of anger from the Australian community will play out at the ballot box. To those 72 members who were elected on a lie, we will haunt you every single day until the next election. The Australian Greens, who, apart from a very small insipid contribution from one of their members, have not participated in these debates today, may well think they are licking their chops in success. I can tell you now that the Australian Greens will also feel the wrath of the Australian people at the next election. This feigned disassociation from this debate today will not save the Australian Greens from the wrath of the Australian people. I put on the record again a couple of comments from senior Labor Party ministers to put some context to this debate today, and in the other place, and to the debate which will occur in this chamber while we debate the carbon tax bills. I will read three quotes and I ask those on the other side to reflect on those quotes. It is not just the Prime Minister's quote that there will be no carbon tax under a government she leads. In an interview with Marius Benson on ABC NewsRadio on 16 April 2010, we heard: A carbon tax is a less efficient way in the Australian Government's view of dealing with this issue. The same person said, in a speech to the Committee for Economic Development for Australia's State of the Nation conference on 23 June 2010: A carbon tax is not the silver bullet some people might think. Again, the same person, on Sky News on 30 April 2009: We know that you can't have any environmental certainty with a carbon tax. Who was that? That was Senator Penny Wong, a senior government minister— Senator Ian Macdonald: A failed climate change minister. Senator RONALDSON: A failed climate change minister. Out of the mouths of babes come these comments on the carbon tax. We know that the Prime Minister promised before the last election there would be no carbon tax. We know that 72 lower house members were elected on the back of a lie, including the Labor Party members in Corangamite, Corio, Bendigo and Ballarat—they were all re-elected on a lie. So how is it that we have got to the position where we are debating a carbon tax some 12 months later? We know what the reason is, and the reason is that a desperate Prime Minister, elected on the back of a lie, did a dirty, grubby deal with the Australian Greens. I say to my colleagues opposite—I am not going to name names but you know who you are—that you know it is a grubby deal and you know you do not support one single thing that the Australian Greens stand for. Are you, over the next month, eventually going to side with a party that you do not support and a party with whom the Prime Minister did this grubby deal? Are you going to join your colleagues in the other place by being part of this web of deceit? I suspect that you are not going to have the guts to do what you know you should be doing, and I think you will carve your names in this dirty piece of history and will support this carbon tax. You will vote against what you know is the right thing to do and vote for this grubby, grubby deal between the current Prime Minister and the Leader of the Australian Greens, Senator Brown. I hope that those on the other side will view this morning's footage from the House of Representatives. It was quite sickening. When you celebrate a lie with a celebratory kiss, what does it say about what drives the current government? I think it says that we have a Prime Minister whom every single person in this chamber and the other place knows is under incredible pressure to hold a job, and we know that the former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, is on a mission to destroy the person who he believes destroyed him. So the Australian people are going to get lumbered with a carbon tax, ahead of the rest of the world—a carbon tax that the Prime Minister promised she would not introduce, that Minister Wong said would not work—to save the Prime Minister's job. Is that what politics has got to in this country—that we have a Prime Minister who will desperately sell out herself and her party to keep her job? Is that the stage we have got to? I notice Senator Cormann is in the chamber today. I encourage people to read the report he tabled last Friday and see what damage a carbon tax will do to this country. I encourage people to make a judgement about a government that would do that to its own people, and I encourage them to look at the sort of price impacts we are going to see as a result of this toxic carbon tax. I am a resident of regional Australia, and every person representing regional and rural areas in this place knows full well that the impact of prices on electricity and other energy bills falls heavier outside the metropolitan areas of Australia—in my own state, there is a difference of some 30 per cent. So here we have a country that is on the precipice, along with the rest of the world, of a double-dip recession. Not one person on either side of this chamber wants us to return to recession. But it is a real risk—and that is not Chicken Little stuff; it is coming from the head of the IMF and from other organisations. We are on the cusp. So what does this government do to protect the country from that? It puts in a carbon tax that is going to export not only emissions but also Australians' dollars. If ever we needed a government in this country that was prepared to stand up for its people, it is now. Now is the time for this Prime Minister to stand up for the people who elected her. Now is the time for the Prime Minister to stand up for those people who did not vote for her. Now is the time for some national leadership in extraordinarily difficult international times. What are we left with? We are left with the remnants of a grubby, get me re-elected deal. That is what it has come down to. When we need leadership, we get a lack of leadership. When we need a Prime Minister to stand up for us, we get a Prime Minister who is only interested in one job, and that is her own. The Prime Minister does not care about the jobs of working men and women in this country. The 72 Labor Party members in the other place who voted for this toxic tax do not care about those people. Those opposite have the opportunity in this chamber over the next month to say to the Australian people, 'We think your job is more important than the Prime Minister's job.' Let us see whether those on the other side have the intestinal fortitude to do that. I think I have a rough idea of what the answer is. Senator Williams: They are going to wimp out. Senator RONALDSON: I think they are going to wimp out, as Senator Williams said. They will wimp out when the time comes. It must have absolutely galled the senator to sit there and watch Senator Brown with that smirk on his face this morning. What motivates those people on the other side? What drives them in a situation like this? Have they not got the guts to stand up for this country and for the working men and women who deserve no less than a government who is not prepared to wash them away in the interests of one person's job? I have some options for them, and I think these are probably options that they have thought about. Why not do the right thing and let the next election be an effective plebiscite on this toxic tax? Why not call an election? They can do what they like with their leader—we are not remotely interested in what is driving the Australian Labor Party. The Australian people are not remotely interested in the petty little leadership disputes of those opposite. They are not interested; they do not care. What they do care about is being lied to. What they do care about is a toxic tax that will potentially destroy their jobs. That is what they want to know about. If the government thinks this tax is so good, why not call an election now? Why not make it a plebiscite on the carbon tax? Then we will have the decision and we can put their petty little leadership disputes behind us and get on with running this country properly. Why not take up the challenge and go to the polls? Why not do it? I think I know the answer. I suspect there are plenty on the other side in the other place who will not be here in that case. I suspect if the government keep on pursuing what they are doing then in the separate half-Senate election a few senators will be going as well. The government should go to the polls and let the Australian people make a decision about this. They can justify it because they were elected on the back of a lie. It is easy to go back and get some clarification from the Australian people about whether this government would have been elected had the people been given the opportunity to cast their vote on a carbon tax. If they are not prepared to do that I will give them another suggestion. Why not see out the term, get on with the job of running this country, sort out their leadership dispute and tell the Australian people that they will delay implementation of this toxic tax until after the election, making it a plebiscite in two years time. They should do one or the other but they should not impose on the Australian community a tax that they know is well ahead of the rest of the world. They should not impose on this community a toxic carbon tax that is going to risk our economic recovery and potentially put us to the back of the pack again. They should just do the right thing and stop concentrating on themselves. They need to stop this self-indulgent claptrap in relation to who wants the Prime Minister's job. Forget about that. It has been destabilising this government for the last six months. It has put the government in complete and utter policy paralysis. It is driving them to introduce a potentially job-destroying, economy-destroying, toxic carbon tax. They should just do the right thing and go to the polls. They need to let us have a decision on the community's views about this carbon tax. I do not think there is one person on this side of the chamber who would not say that we would respect the outcome of the community's views in relation to this matter, but we have no respect for a government who imposed a tax of on the back of a lie and who did not give the Australian community the opportunity to vote on this particular matter. They must do the right thing and go to the polls, and then we will see whether this tax is or is not supported by the community. If it is, we will get on with it. If it is not—which is my strong suspicion and, I suspect, the strong suspicion of those 72 members and those on the other side of the chamber—then let us drop it. Let us do the right thing and just get back to running this country again, please.