Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health Administration) Share this | Hansard source

For the record, I note that the government is not prepared to answer some very straightforward questions. I am very well aware which legislation we are debating, but I would also remind Senator McLucas that she herself, in her reply to the second reading debate, advised the Senate of the new tariff proposals introduced by the government and of the government’s intentions moving forward. The validation bill in front of us today is part of a continuing process. It is a process that started on 26 April with the government’s organised leak on what it intended to do on this. Sorry, the leak was on the Medicare levy surcharge thresholds. I am getting myself confused! This process started with the announcement on 26 April 2008 that the government would effectively increase the taxation on RTDs by 70 per cent by getting rid of the category of ‘other excisable alcohol products with an alcohol content of less than 10 per cent’. It started in April 2008. It went through the whole debate we had in two Senate inquiries and the debate we had in March.

We as a Senate are here helping the government to mop up where they had created a serious problem for themselves. We are demonstrating good faith. We are accommodating the government because we think it is the right thing to do. And we know that the government continue to play games and refuse to answer very reasonable and precise questions. I can only have one assumption as to why you are ducking and weaving and not prepared to answer my questions on the record. I can only assume that you had to revise your estimates further downwards. I can only assume that you are expecting that there will be continued growth in the sale of RTDs from 1 July 2009 in your revenue estimates and that, in the context of this debate, you are not prepared to let the cat out of the bag. You are not prepared to say on record here today that, yes, the government continue to expect that the sale of RTDs will continue to grow moving forward. The reason you do not want to say it is because it shoots down in flames your core argument, the only argument you have been able to come up with, which is that sales have gone down in 2008-09 and so binge drinking must have gone down. It is a totally flawed argument that not even your government senators on the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs agree with. I think the point is well made.

I do hope that the parliamentary secretary’s commitment in this chamber today will be followed through by her officials and that sometime this week—and I would like some reassurance on this from the parliamentary secretary—I will be provided with the information I have asked for.