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

And the abattoirs and the canneries. It is the food production people who are going to cop it, because the Labor Party want to use that section of the economy, that section of the community and that section of regional Australia as a little pawn in their game. There should have been proper decoupling—decoupling that the government gave a guarantee, a warrant, that they would do. But they have not done it. The minister admitted this. She nodded in the chamber and said, ‘That’s exactly what we’re doing.’ She said that over there. She said: ‘That’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re keeping the two tied together.’ Why are you doing that? You gave a guarantee that you would not do that, Minister. But you are doing that. So you are being a little bit mischievous in the way that you are conducting things here. Maybe you should go back to Murray Goulburn and have dinner with them again and say: ‘What we intend to do with you, dairy producers of Australia, is use you as a little pawn in our game. You are now a political football.’

Let us be fair about this. You have heard it in the chamber. This is about connecting the two schemes. This is about putting duress on the whole process in full knowledge of what is going to happen to dairy. This is a clear connection. She has told us that the action fund is connected to the CPRS. Therefore, you have the duress. That is what we are up against. This ETS is a most insidious new tax that is going to come into play with words such as ‘catastrophe’ and ‘abomination’ connected to it. But the realities are economic realities for the people who government policy will affect. I ask you, Minister, to honour your commitment and decouple as you promised that you would.