Coalition talking points: ‘all the government can do is mock’

Crikey continues to receive Coalition talking points sent from Tony Abbott’s office to all MPs each day. Here is today’s edition …

Jobs are on the line and families are squeezed under Labor’s carbon tax — and all the Government can do is mock.

Coalition message:

The Coalition will restore hope, reward and opportunity for all Australians
The Gillard Government is weak and incompetent, divided and dysfunctional

Today’s message:

Jobs are on the line and families are squeezed under Labor’s carbon tax — and all the Government can do is mock

Issues that the Leadership Team will focus on:

Australians deserve better than a mocking government:

• Jobs are on the line, families are squeezed and all the Government can do is mock them
• Australians deserve better and the PM should apologise for deceiving the people and breaking her promise
• And added to her apology, the Prime Minister needs to tell Australians whether her government is finding a deep and lasting consensus on the carbon tax
• After all, the Prime Minister misled Australians, assuring: “There will be no carbon tax under the Government I lead”
• And thought bubbles like her 150-person citizens’ assembly – not the Parliament, some other 150 representatives — were to signal the way to a deep and lasting consensus
• The citizens assembly promise fell over and instead we got the broken promise carbon tax
• Julia Gillard should tell Australians today: What is the deep and lasting consensus that this government is finding over its carbon tax?

(Craig Emerson has been booed off the political stage after delivering a song-and-dance routine ridiculing Opposition’s anti-carbon tax campaign — The Australian)

Labor’s stunts fools no-one:

• The song and dance routine follows Labor’s Whyalla stunt on Carbon Sunday, claiming one day is proof Whyalla won’t get hurt, trivialises the serious impact of a jobs-destroying carbon tax
• Labor knows that it has been Tony Abbott and Sophie Mirabella who have been highlighting the real issue of the carbon tax on Australian industry, particularly steel — and the $64 million bailout of One Steel is a direct result of that pressure
• Labor knows it was a courageous was Wayne Hanson, the State Secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union who said Whyalla would be “wiped off the map” under the carbon tax
• Treasury modelling says that the carbon tax will reduce steel and iron production by 21% by 2050
• Can anyone believe the government would have given additional carbon tax compensation if the Coalition had not been warning about the impacts of the carbon tax on the steel industry?
• The best future for Whyalla is a future without a carbon tax
• The best future for the La Trobe Valley is without a carbon tax
• The best future for manufacturing, construction, retail, tourism and for workers across the Australian economy is without a carbon tax
• The Coalition has a better way
• And under the Coalition there will be a tax cut without a carbon tax and a fair go for pensioners; the quantum will be announced in good time before the next election
• Pensioners will be better off not worse off under the Coalition

(Deep uncertainty among the Latrobe Valley power generators and potential sweeping cuts to the local economy and employment have been sheeted home to the new carbon pricing regime in a landmark report that examines the future of thousands of regional jobs – The Australian)

Australians deserve better than a Prime Minister who won’t even stick to her own script:

• Julia Gillard broke her word to Australians on the carbon tax then sought to argue she was responding to the realities of Parliament
• It was a failure of leadership — and it’s a pattern being repated, time and again
• Julia Gillard scrapped her poker machine promise to Andrew Wilkie because she said that was the reality of the Parliament she’s in
• Promised company tax cuts were abandoned because she said that was the reality of the Parliament she’s in
• But the responsibilities of government to stop the people smuggling trade have been outsourced to a committee
• Julia Gillard should accept the reality of the Parliament she’s in, not set up a committee
• Today the Prime Minister could initiate offshore processing at Nauru and PNG, restore TPVs and have boats turned back where safe to do so

Electricity brochure is yet more Labor propaganda:

• People are paying the world’s biggest carbon tax, plus the costs of bureaucracy, plus Labor’s bailout packages, plus a $70 million ad bill
• Now millions of electricity consumers will be hit with carbon tax propaganda, courtesy of Labor, direct inside their electricity bills
• This two page glossy is a blatant bid by federal Labor to counter the detailing of the carbon tax price on power bills by the states
• So even when you open your electricity bill you will be bombarded with more carbon tax spin from the government
• Australians are paying this carbon tax — multiple times over

(Gillard Government will step up its sales pitch for the carbon tax with the help of power companies, which will insert a two page glossy brochure into households’ next electricity bill. But the move immediately came under question from within the Labor Party amid concern among backbenchers that the public anger will not subside in coming months — Aust Financial Review)

…and Labor won’t tell us the whole story on businesses’ concern:

• The Prime Minister might mention a list of companies said to be supporting her carbon tax – but isn’t telling us that only one of those is on the list of directly liable firms
• Some of the companies throwing their weight behind the Carbon Tax include Furless, a company that makes vegan and cruelty free makeup brushes, bags, cases and brush belts, Byron Bay International Film Festival, Telstra Shop in Ballina – not Telstra Australia – and Organia Revolution, sellers of Elephant Dung Journals according to their website
• While these businesses are free to voice their views, for the Prime Minister to be touting them as an indication of wider business support for the Carbon Tax is completely misleading and ignores the financial reality for businesses
• This Carbon Tax will chip away at their bottom line and restrict their ability get ahead, while Australia’s domestic emissions actually go up by 43m tonnes

Coalition will repeal Labor’s damaging carbon tax:

• The Coalition in government will move immediately to undo the damage on jobs and economic growth from Labor’s carbon tax
• Gillard shouldn’t assume that just because she has broken her promise that TA will break his
• Just because she has broken solemn pledges doesn’t mean she should assume TA would do the same
• On day one of new Parliament will introduce new legislation
• What this Parliament has done the next Parliament can undo
• This is absolutely do-able — there is no booby trap that can’t be unwired
• Under the Coalition there will be a tax cut without a carbon tax and a fair go for pensioners; the quantum will be announced in good time before the next election
• Pensioners will be better off not worse off under the Coalition

If asked: Tony Abbott to meet today with Indonesia President:

• As Tony Abbott made clear at a dinner in honour of the President, Indonesia has made a remarkable recovery from the economic turmoil of the late 1990s
• Indonesian democracy has stabilised and matured under the Presidency of Dr Yudhoyono
• Australia values the opportunity to work closely with Indonesia to address the challenges of our region

If asked, re: Simon Crean and Martin Ferguson comments on unsustainable wage increases and falling productivity in the resources sector:

• We have long said that the Fair Work laws have created a militancy problem, a productivity problem, and a flexibility problem
• We know that the so-called “independent review” of the Fair Work system won’t provide any real solutions to these issues because Bill Shorten curtailed the Terms of Reference against the advice of his own department
• However we will closely examine the report of the Review Panel when it is released
• The Coalition will have a strong and effective workplace relations policy released in good time before the next election that provides practical solutions to practical problems as identified by the community

(Union veterans of the 1980-90s accord agreements have launched an extraordinary broadside at the current generation of union officials, accusing them of strangling the resources boom and threatening billions of dollars in projects by placing short-term wages gain over long-term wealth creation. In an attack on union leadership and culture, Martin Ferguson and Simon Crean – both former ACTU leaders – warned that exorbitant wage demands were unsustainable and risked closing down the investment pipeline and destroying conditions for workers in 10 to 20 years — The Australian)

Further information:
Russ Neal
Office of Tony Abbott