Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Revenue) Share this | Hansard source

because I want to again express my concern about the way the government is handling the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax Assessment Amendment Bill 2006 and the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (Instalment Transfer Interest Charge Imposition) Bill 2006 by denying members an opportunity to speak and by denying our right to move amendments. We do not expect to win those amendments, because we do not have the numbers in this place, but we and the people who put us here—the people whom we represent—expect that we will be allowed to move those amendments, to put the alternative point of view. It is an absolute disgrace that the government is denying us that opportunity. In the 10 years I have been here, I have rarely seen such a misuse of power in this place.

The other thing I want to express my concern about is that the minister, in his summation of the last tax bill, again failed to answer the many questions that I had invited him to answer during that summation. I will be doing it again on this bill, and I will just keep doing it until such time as he sees fit to start answering my questions. I do not know what the problem is. I do not know whether he does not have the resources to answer them, he does not have the support in staffing to answer them, he does not know the answers to them or he just does not want to admit to the answers. It is very likely that many of those answers will not fall kindly on the ears of the Australian people.

I invite him to reconsider his approach. Many of the questions that we put are not put for political purposes. They are genuine attempts to seek further information from the minister and the minister’s department.

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