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

I do thank Senator Xenophon for perhaps the most useful answer that has been given in any debate in a committee stage in this chamber for a couple of years. He actually answered the question and knew what he was talking about. His answer did raise one issue, which I will ask the minister, but assuming the minister will not answer perhaps Senator Xenophon might take up the question for me. Perhaps you did explain this, Senator Xenophon, and perhaps I missed it. How can we be sure that this arrangement, which you have just explained very clearly, will be put in place? We on this side have a bit of hesitation in accepting promises made by the current Prime Minister, and I think most Australians will, too, after the ‘no carbon tax in any government I lead’ issue—but I do not want to go into that. What are the mechanisms that make Senator Xenophon confident that this arrangement—which he has almost single-handedly, I might say, arranged with the current government—will be put into effect?