Bridie Jabour theguardian.com, Sunday 6 April 2014
Government still determined to abolish carbon and mining taxes despite swing from Liberals and wins for Greens and Palmer
Tony Abbott insists voters still want the government to abolish the carbon and mining taxes. Photograph: Alan Porritt/AAP
Tony Abbott has not interpreted the swing against the government in Western Australia as a message from the electorate on the carbon tax, saying the Coalition is as determined as ever to scrap it.
Abbott said the 5.6% swing in the Senate election rerun was “typical” and one of voters’ main expectations was that the government would get rid of the carbon and mining taxes.
“As far as I am concerned the very strong take-out of this result is that the Australian people yet again have voted to get rid of the carbon tax and get rid of the mining tax, and I expect these taxes to be swiftly scrapped,” he said.
Abbott said he expected the new-look Senate to respect the government’s mandate when it starts sitting from July. “There was absolutely nothing in this vote yesterday to suggest that voters have suddenly decided that they love the carbon tax or love the mining tax,” he said on Sunday.
The Liberals secured two Senate seats and could possibly take a third. The Palmer United party and Greens each won a seat. The Greens leader, Christine Milne, has sworn to use the seat to prevent the carbon tax being abolished.
Labor secured one seat, with a 4.8% swing against it, and it is fighting the Liberals for the sixth seat, with about 90% of the vote counted.
“I think it's a typical byelection result [for a government],” Abbott said. “Candidates who are against the carbon tax and mining tax have performed very strongly.”
When he launched the Liberal party’s West Australian campaign, Abbott said the electorate should cast their votes for the government to endorse the scrapping of the “anti-Western Australian” carbon and mining taxes.
The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, said it had been an “unusual” election and voters had taken out their frustration on the major parties for having to vote a second time. “This is certainly no endorsement of the Liberals’ cuts to jobs, health and education,” he said.
“Our goal was always to have two Labor senators elected to stand up for WA in Canberra. There is a lot of counting to go and we’re extremely hopeful Louise [Pratt] will be re-elected.”
Shorten did not mention the Labor party’s number one Senate candidate, Joe Bullock, who was forced to apologise to Labor party members on Friday after calling them “mad” and making disparaging remarks about Pratt.
“We always knew, with such an unusual election, that we’d be up against it but I’m proud of how hard our candidates, members and volunteers fought for every vote,” Shorten said.
“There’s no doubt a lot of people were frustrated at being forced backed to the polls after the first fiasco. This should never have been allowed to happen and it should not happen again.”
Milne said the Greens were open to negotiating with Abbott but were not afraid of a fight over the carbon and mining taxes. “He [Abbott] is now going to have to deal with a very, very difficult Senate. This puts Julia Gillard’s effort [in] working with the independents and the Greens in the last parliament in the shade, and he doesn’t have the capabilities to do it,” she said.
Milne said the result was a clear message that voters did not want to get rid of the carbon tax. “It’s going to be interesting to see if he can wrangle this group of individuals when Clive Palmer can’t even wrangle his own,” she said.
The foreign minister, Julie Bishop, echoed Abbott’s assessment that the swing against the government was “typical” and said voters had not turned to the “alternate government” party, Labor, but instead to two minor parties, from the right and the left.
“From our point of view that’s a very positive outcome, given this is like a byelection, unprecedented as it is,” she said on the ABC’s Insiders program.
Asked if the result meant the carbon tax was not as significant an issue as the government had made out, Bishop replied: “Labor got an historically low vote. That’s a real slap in the face for Bill Shorten. He’s been running a negative anti-government campaign and I think it’s time he wakes up to the fact people aren’t buying that.”
Bishop said the government was still committed to abolishing the carbon and mining taxes. “The carbon tax is a burden we don’t have to carry,” she said.
The minister said she got on well with Palmer. Asked if the government would be able to negotiate with him, she replied: “We’ll see. We haven’t had to negotiate with the PUP yet.”
