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

I am sure that Senator Xenophon and I and most other Australians accepted in good faith the promise, ‘There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.’ We all accepted that in good faith. We thought that she actually meant it. Here we are a couple of months later and she did not mean it. You have answered my question, Senator Xenophon; I am not going to argue with you further on that. Remember the old Keating thing, the l-a-w law tax cuts back in the 1993 election? Senator Sherry raised this point—he was there then—I think that he was probably part of the government that legislated for these l-a-w law tax cuts. They had the election, won the election on that, and immediately got rid of it with the help of the Democrats, as I recall—the other left wing party that used to be here.

Senator Xenophon, if this were in legislation, if they wanted to change it, they would have to go through not only this chamber—and I accept that, after 1 July, with the Greens very much the ultraleft wing of the Labor Party, they would support it and it would probably get through this chamber—but the other chamber, in which it might not find such an easy passage. If it were legislated, you could be more assured. Perhaps you do not want to answer this; perhaps you would only repeat what you have already said. But you are accepting the word of a government that has proved that you cannot accept their word that they will do this, that they will issue these determinations, that the Attorney-General will do this. I am sure that when they made the arrangements with you they probably believed that they would. But perhaps the Greens will come along and say, ‘We do not want you to do that for X, Y and Z reasons,’ and the Prime Minister will get up and ring her hands and say: ‘Oh, things have changed since I promised Senator Xenophon that we would do this. The Greens have formed a coalition in Queensland with the Queensland state Labor government and they do not want to go through this any more.’ It is up to you what you accept of the government’s word, but it seems to me to be pretty flimsy. You may want to comment on that.

I want to ask Senator Xenophon one final question. If this arrangement had been in place, say, a year ago, could Senator Xenophon indicate in rough figures—not using exact figures because I appreciate he would not have them here—from his, I know, very diligent research into this whole issue, what the case would have been then—what it might have cost the Queensland government to insure and what they might have got back from the Commonwealth under the NDRA arrangements? That is one question. Then compare that with what is going to happen now when this arrangement was not in place. Has Senator Xenophon actually done those calculations to indicate what the difference would have been had this arrangement been in place?