Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

What an extraordinary sequence of events today. If you wanted any evidence of why consumer confidence is down, business confidence is down and building investment is down, and if you wanted know why there is a general despondency across the nation, look no further than the fact that 24 hours ago the Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer of Australia declared in this place that '1,000 big polluters' would be paying a carbon tax and yet 24 hours later he refused to reveal when he found out that 500 had gone missing. Five hundred companies have gone missing. How do you lose 500 companies? They are like aircraft carriers but much bigger! Are they in the dispatch box? Are they under the table? Where have they gone? Are they hiding in the meditation room upstairs? Where are they? I can only think that the Treasurer must be an acrobat and that he would be well served if he was in Circus Oz, because he has done what no magician has done since we had old Alan Bond around—he has managed to destroy big companies. He has taken them out of the equation. Five hundred companies have disappeared out of Australia in the last 24 hours.

The Prime Minister on Monday night in a joint statement—roping old Swannie in and the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency—said, 'The principles are settled; the 1,000 biggest polluters.' They confirmed on Monday night that it was all done and dusted, that 1,000 big polluters would pay. Come Thursday, three days before Sunday, it is down to 500.

I walked outside for a brief moment and there was a gentle hum in the background. I wondered, 'What is that hum out there?' Do you know what it was? It was the sound of the pulping of all those documents that have been printed—all those glossy brochures. They are re-cutting the ads tonight. They have probably flown to the other side of the world to get some daylight so that they can redo the ads and redo the brochures because they suddenly have to take out 500 companies. Imagine, this is the only time in Canberra's history that the whirr of the pulping machines has been louder than the printing machines. Where are things at? What is frightening is that their mob, their backbench—the caucus—must be wondering what the hell is going on. If the people on the frontbench who are going to make the announcement do not know how many companies are going to be affected by a carbon tax, how can their backbench have any confidence in them? This is not the way to run a country. Was it a surprise to the member for New England that it had gone from 1,000 to 500?

See this speech in context