Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Charlton knows this; this was an insidious tax in a proud manufacturing centre like the city that I represent in part—Geelong. This was an extremely damaging tax and we have proudly repealed that carbon tax. The Australian people know that, come hell or high water, in the next election we will see the carbon tax return under Labor. Labor has made that clear and we are determined to fight those taxes that cause such damage to our economy and to jobs growth.

We have repealed the mining tax—another toxic tax so damaging for jobs, so damaging for productivity and so damaging to our economy. We have effectively stopped the boats. We have saved the Australian taxpayer billions of dollars in stopping the boats and we can see from the members opposite when the minister stands before them and talks about our achievements that it is an absolute and utter embarrassment to them. It is an embarrassment: the way in which they flip-flopped on that policy for six years. We said we would do it, we are doing it and we have done it.

We are building the roads of the 21st century. Our infrastructure Prime Minister knows how important it is to invest in local communities and particularly in the regions. And we are fixing the budget—and, oh boy, what a job that is! The member for Griffith invited us to take responsibility. We are taking responsibility, because as the member for Lilley said to Senator Carr, the situation that members opposite created when they were in government was 'fiscally ruinous'. 'Fiscally ruinous': they were the words out of the former Treasurer's mouth. Six hundred and sixty-seven billion dollars of debt; $191 billion of cumulative deficits after promising they would deliver four consecutive surpluses! Members opposite have failed fundamentally to—

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