Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. I remind the Acting Prime Minister that there have been seven changes to the carbon tax it was promised would never be introduced, five versions of the mining tax, live cattle exports that have been allowed and then banned and then allowed again, and, in the last 24 hours, three versions of the legislation banning fishing. How can Australian businesses plan for the future when this government flips and flops, chops and changes and just makes it up as it goes along?

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Deputy Leader of the Opposition for that question, because it is not a bad attempt to deflect attention away from the savage cuts that are being made to health and education right across Queensland, the absolutely savage cuts—14,000 public sector workers getting the axe in Queensland.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. If the relevance rule is to mean anything at all, the Treasurer must be brought back to the actual question he was asked and not this extraordinary attempt to avoid his own incompetence.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When questions are asked with so much detail, applying a direct relevance rule becomes quite difficult. I will ask the Acting Prime Minister to return to the question before the chair.

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Certainly. First of all, I was asked about the carbon price. The government has put in place a carbon price to make sure we reduce carbon pollution and to drive investment in renewable energy. Nothing could be more important to the prosperity of an economy in the 21st century than being driven by renewable energy and making your economy more energy efficient. We have devoted a lot of time to that over the past 12 to 18 months, and we have been opposed, tooth and nail, every day of the week, by those opposite. But we have got that done, and that will be good for our economy in the long term. It will be good for prosperity in this country and it will increase the investment in renewable energy. So everyone on this side of the House is proud of that achievement.

And, of course, we have put in place new taxation arrangements in the mining industry to make sure Australians get the fair share from the resources they own—100 per cent.

But of course what those opposite have done there, once again, is to be entirely negative, to oppose everything, because they would rather see our economy fail than see this country succeed, and that is the approach that they take on every issue.

Now let us go to the issue of the supertrawler. What the government wants to see is a sustainable fishing industry in this country. The supertrawler poses new challenges to our current regulatory framework, so the government is coming to the table in good faith, understanding the concern of all Australians about the activity of the supertrawler. As someone who grew up on the Queensland coast, I have spent a lot of time in the water and I have spent a lot of time out there fishing along the Queensland coast. What I want to see for my children and what I want to see for my grandchildren is the capacity to throw a line in and catch a fish. That is what we want to see, and anyone who wants their children and grandchildren to see that will be for sustainable practices in fisheries.

But, as is the case with the carbon price, what we have on the other side of the House is a mob of environmental vandals who do not understand the importance of sustainability—sustainability when it comes to the need to invest in renewable energy, sustainability when it comes to the need to make sure we have adequate stocks— (Time expired)