Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott addresses the nation about the carbon tax. Watch the video, read the transcript.
Since the carbon tax was first announced, I've been to dozens of shopping centres, factories and mines talking about our country and its future.
People think our country is drifting and it's hard to know whether the Labor Party or the Greens are really in charge.
Australians are worried about jobs and about the cost of living that just goes up and up and now there's the carbon tax that's just going to make a difficult situation worse.
Like you, Margie and I want a better future for our children. We only have one planet and I want to preserve it. But you don't protect the environment by making everyday life more expensive and by exporting Australian jobs.
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This carbon tax is a bad idea because everything will cost more: at $23 a tonne, power prices will immediately rise by 10 per cent and the cost of living of average households will rise by $515 a year that you can't afford.
The Prime Minister says that most families will be compensated but you can't compensate people who lose their jobs and the compensation won't keep pace as the tax goes up and up and up.
Even on the government's own modelling, millions of Australians will be worse off – including a single income family with one child on just average weekly earnings.
The Prime Minister says that the tax won't hurt you but why should we trust her now when we couldn't before the election? Why should we trust the Prime Minister to stand up to the Greens in the future when she can't stand up to them now?
Why should we trust this government with a new tax when we know where it will all end: with more spending, more waste and more spin.
So I say “no” to a carbon tax because I say “yes” to manufacturing in Australia and “yes” to affordable electricity and transport.
The whole point of this carbon tax is to make coal, gas and oil more expensive. The price signal won't work if the price isn't high. The tax doesn't work if it doesn't hurt.
It has to make turning on your heater more expensive and make using transport more expensive to work.
Under a carbon tax, Australians won't use less steel, aluminium, and cement – we will just import them from countries without a carbon tax and without any plan to reduce their own emissions.
The world's emissions won't change at all but Australia will have fewer jobs because there is no such thing as a solar-powered steel mill, a wind-driven motor manufacturing plant, an electric passenger plane or cheap base load power other than from coal or gas.
I think Australia needs a new plan, not a new tax.
The Coalition's plan to cut emissions means more trees, better soil and smarter technology.
Over the past 15 years, Australians have reduced their emissions intensity by nearly 50 per cent by using energy more efficiently.
I've seen farms that have captured thousands and thousands of tonnes of carbon by moving from chemical to organic fertiliser. I've seen power generation that actually reduces emissions because it burns what would otherwise rot in landfills.
None of this needed a carbon tax. In fact, a carbon tax would make this kind of innovation harder.
This is the kind of innovation and ingenuity that our plan would fund. Our plan is costed, capped, and fully funded from savings in the budget. It means no extra burden on taxpayers and no extra costs to consumers. It's not a tax policy pretending to be an environment policy.
The Coalition's plan means a fair go for pensioners – without a carbon tax. And tax cuts funded from savings – not from a carbon tax.
Australians want less tax not more, and they want incentives not penalties from their government.
They want a government which delivers after an election what it promised beforehand.
We will deliver the hope, reward and opportunity that good government fosters.
That's why there should be no carbon tax, why the Australian people are entitled to a vote, and why the next election will be a referendum on this bad tax based on a lie. Together, we can fight this tax before it becomes law.
