Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I know it is hard and I know you are trying to deal with the issue yourself—he has probably rolled you in some caucus meeting—but there is probably something hanging out the end of it there. There is probably some promise. Maybe somebody is going to look after you favourably. But this works in a troika. You had the cross-media ownership laws, you had the mergers and acquisitions laws and now, to really help you out, we are going to make it tax free. What more can we do? What we are going to do is let you buy out our media companies through the media ownership bill, which unfortunately was supported by Senator Fielding, and then we are going to allow you to get as big as you possibly want with the mergers and acquisitions laws—we do not want to have much oversight over that. Is there anything else we can do for? Yes, we have thought of it: we will make it tax free. What a package deal! You should box the trifecta, Senator Sterle. You are complicit in it now.