EO&E..............................................................................................................................................................

 

 

The Government’s announcement this afternoon shows that the carbon tax has been in for less than two months and already the Government has admitted that they have got it fundamentally wrong. It shows that this is a government mired in chaos and confusion and I have a simple message for the Australian people. This is a dog of a tax. You can’t fix it, you’ve just got to scrap it and the message is that this government just does not know what it is doing when it comes to this tax. They said it was absolutely vital. They said that they had the tax absolutely perfect in every detail and now we haven’t had the carbon tax for two months yet and they’ve admitted there is a fundamental flaw at the heart of the carbon tax.

 

Now, a couple of other points that are worth making. First of all, on the Government’s own logic, businesses and consumers are being ripped off blind right now. Second, there is obviously going to be a huge hole in the Government’s budget numbers as a result of this announcement today. If you can’t take the price for granted, you can’t take the revenue for granted. If you can’t take the revenue for granted, you can’t rely on the compensation. No one can count on the compensation that this government has promised them.

 

Mr Abbott, would this make it more difficult for you to repeal the tax?

 

 

No. I think it will just reinforce in the public’s mind the necessity of getting rid of this tax. A tax that the Government can’t get right is a tax that Australia doesn’t need.

 

 

So would you seek to scrap the deal with Europe if you came into power?

 

 

This is just a bad tax. It is a bad tax based on a lie and every day, the Government trying to patch it up just demonstrates how bad a tax it is. You can just imagine, can’t you, the Prime Minister going to the next election saying, ‘There will be no floor price under the government I lead.’ Plainly, every time the Government touches this tax, it gets it wrong.

 

 

Does this move not mean, though, that Australia is acting proportionately to the rest of the world?

 

 

It means that this government got it fundamentally wrong and you talk about Europe. Europe is not the world. Europe is not the world. China has no such carbon tax. The United States has no such carbon tax. Japan has no such carbon tax. India has no such carbon tax. Taiwan and Korea have no such carbon taxes in place. This just emphasises how wrong the Government got it when it brought in this bad tax based on a lie.

 

 

So what will you do if you gain power?

 

 

We will scrap the carbon tax. On day one of an election campaign, we will put the public service on notice not to further proceed with measures associated with this tax. On day one of a new government, we will instruct the public service to prepare the carbon tax repeal legislation and on day one of a new parliament we will introduce the carbon tax repeal legislation and we will get it through as quickly as we humanly can.

 

 

Could that damage your ties with Europe?

 

 

The fact is, this is a bad tax based on a lie and every time the Government admits that there is yet another problem with the tax, it just reinforces what a terrible mistake this whole thing was from the very beginning. As Keith DeLacy, the former Labor treasurer of Queensland declared on the weekend, this tax is an act of collective insanity and the kind of fiddling that we have seen today from the Government just proves that Keith DeLacy is right. It is an act of collective insanity.

 

 

But is worth damaging ties with Europe? Is it really worth that?

 

 

Well there’s no question of that. This just proves that the Government has got it fundamentally wrong.

 

 

The European Commission in a memo it says the arrangement represents the first step towards linking the established carbon market in Europe with developing carbon markets in the Asia-Pacific. What do you think of that? They’re saying that this is actually a step towards establishing markets in the Asia-Pacific.

 

 

There are no developing carbon markets in the Asia-Pacific. What this means is that the one country that was trying to lead the world on this, namely Australia, has just got it fundamentally wrong because of the Gillard Government’s bad tax based on a lie.

 

[ends]