TONY Abbott’s great big election promise to dump what he called the great big carbon tax was finally delivered this morning after a Government ordeal of frustration and embarrassment.  
 
Negotiations with the Palmer United Party and other crossbench senators finally paid off for the Prime Minister with Labor’s price on carbon emissions dismantled.

 

The Senate voted 39-32 to scrap Labor’s carbon pricing scheme after securing the support of PUP senators and other crossbenchers.

 

Subdued applause from government senators greeted the result as the Abbott government finally delivered on its key election promise.

 

The vote followed days of protracted negotiations with Clive Palmer, who embarrassed the government last week by pulling his crucial support for the repeal at the last minute.

 

The three PUP senators and the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party’s Ricky Muir gave the government four of the six crossbench votes it needed to abolish the tax.

 

Family First’s Bob Day and Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm - who also joined the cross bench on July 1 - rounded out the majority needed.

 

Another crossbencher, the DLP’s John Madigan, voted for the repeal.

 

Independent Nick Xenophon was not in the chamber for the vote. Labor and the Australian Greens opposed the repeal but didn’t have the numbers to save the scheme introduced by the Gillard government in 2012.

 

Prime Minister Tony Abbott hailed the move as great news for families and businesses.

 

“Scrapping the carbon tax is a foundation of the government’s economic action strategy,” he said in a statement just minutes after a Senate vote on Thursday morning.

 

It would save the average family $550 a year and the first benefits would be seen in coming power bills.

 

Mr Abbott says the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has been given the funding and powers to ensure savings are passed on to consumers.

 

The Liberal Party has produced an advertisement promising “cheaper electricity, lower costs for small business and more jobs”.

 

The repeal comes seven years to the day that another Liberal prime minister, John Howard, revealed a plan for an emissions trading scheme.

 

Greens leader Christine Milne made a last-minute plea to the crossbench telling them it was a “critical moment” for the nation. A vote to repeal was a vote for failure to address global warming, she warned.

 

“Australia will be relegated to a pariah and a backwater.”

 

Despite the threat of after-hours detention, senators did not rush to pass the amendment with debate going for hours yesterday.

 

“After about 40 hours of debate in relation to these measures in this place we still don’t have a resolution,” government Senate Leader Eric Abetz railed in question time yesterday.

 

The cabinet minister left to handle the filibuster was Mathias Cormann, who eventually stopped answering the onslaught of questions from irate opposition senators.

 

Labor dragged out the final debate stages with questions about the Palmer United Party’s amendment to ensure price cuts from the carbon tax repeal are passed fully onto consumers and businesses. The Greens took a similar line of questioning and quizzed the finance minister about the government’s promised $550 saving for households from the repeal of the carbon tax.

 

“We can go round and round in circles,” Senator Cormann said, invoking ire from his opponents.

 

The bills and amendments were also held up by backroom talks on a list of other bills to be brought on for debate before the Senate rises for a five-week break.

 

But the carbon pricing demolition — the third attempt to introduce the bill to the Senate since November — was the most satisfying outcome for the Government.

 

Soon big companies will stop paying a penalty on carbon emissions, currently just over $25 a tonne, ending Australia’s most controversial policy implementation since the 2003 decision to join the Iraq invasion.

 

The carbon price element will be removed from household electricity expenses, and power company bills will itemise the savings. New laws demand savings be passed on to customers or a utility would have to pay a fine equal to 250 per cent of the reduction.

 

Politically, the repeal allows Prime Minister Abbott to boast he has completed two of his three major election pledges — to “axe the tax” and to “stop the boats”. The third was to repair the Budget.

 

However, Mr Abbott could have problems fulfilling his full election vow, which was to axe the carbon price and lower electricity bills.

 

There are other factors pushing up power prices such as infrastructure investment and falling demand.

 

The Government might be duly embarrassed as electricity costs still go up despite the absence of the carbon price. Its promise that average households will be better off by $550 a year from a variety of savings could be wrecked.

 

The Government also has found to its distress over the past week that it cannot take the Palmer United Party and Clive Palmer for granted.