Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

It is, as Senator Ronaldson just said, extraordinary. Where is the logic in that? Ms Gillard is saying to people, 'We will increase our coal exports despite these clean energy bills.' So we are going to ship out the coal from Australia, give everybody else the advantage of our high-quality, cheap coal, without a tax, but tax Australians who want to use Australian coal for Australian households and Australian manufacturing. Go figure. This is the policy of the once proud Australian Labor Party. As we have said before as a coalition, time and time again, there is a better way to do this. We have a direct action plan. I will not repeat that now, other than to say it is good, practical and fully costed.

If the Australian Labor Party were genuinely concerned about carbon dioxide emissions, what could they do for the benefit of the people of the world? They could simply say to the Indian government, 'You can have some of our uranium.' That would do more than anything this carbon tax could provide. That would reduce carbon dioxide emissions many times more than this carbon tax would. But once again the Australian Workers Union, other unionists and Labor Party people would say: 'Hang on a moment. How is it that this once proud Australian Labor Party says you can dig out Australian uranium, ship it to another country to allow them to use it to heat their homes and to help them supply electricity for their manufacturing sectors, and that that is a good thing to do, but somehow it is an unmitigated evil if we dig out Australian uranium for use in Australia by Australians for Australians?' That is the great dilemma that the Australian Labor Party has.

I have said once before to Senator Ludwig, 'If you lie down with dogs, you will get up with fleas.' The Australian Labor Party have deliberately got together with the Australian Greens and they now have flea-infested policies all over them, from the carbon tax to all manner of other things.

Senator Brandis interjecting—

I agree with Senator Brandis. Senator Scott Ryan went one better than that analogy. He disagreed with me. The flea analogy was not all that good, he thought. He thought the Greens were more like a tick that was—