Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Absolutely, Senator Cormann. Senator Cash raised the point about how the minister determines a class of individuals who will be exempt. Senator Xenophon might be interested in that. I made the quite ridiculous comment that perhaps the minister could exclude people who were members of the Australian Labor Party. Not for a moment do I think the minister would do that, but, as I read the legislation, he could. It will not help you, Senator Xenophon. You do not have a political party, so they cannot exclude the Xenophon independents from paying it but they could exclude the Australian Labor Party from doing it. This is legislation we are going to pass tonight. Would you believe that? The minister can determine a class of individuals for the purposes of subsection (2)—that is, paying a tax—if the minister is satisfied that the class was affected by a natural disaster which happened in Australia between July 2010 and 2012. I can tell you now that there are some members of the Australian Labor Party in the north and in Queensland who have been affected. Perhaps they could be excluded. As I say, not for a moment do I suggest that the minister would do that but there has to be some constraint on it. I will come back to that later. At this stage, my question to you, Minister, is—