Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

I was making the point about the choice of the question. I am happy to get to the question, but it does say something when one of the opposition's economic spokespeople in the Senate, in this week when we are debating the minerals tax and when announcements have been made by the crossbenches, wants to talk about modelling on legislation which has already been passed.

I turn now to President Obama's statement and to the misstatement that we can again see in Senator Cormann's proposition to me—a proposition Senator Cormann has made over and over again. He was told in Senate estimates some time ago that what he was putting was wrong, but he does not listen because it does not suit his argument. He was told that it was wrong to suggest that the Treasury modelling of the government's plan depends on the United States putting a price on carbon by 2016. Would the senator like me to repeat that again? He is wrong to assert that Treasury modelling of the government's plan depends on the United States putting a price on carbon by 2016. It is the same proposition he put over and over again in Senate estimates in a desperate attempt to drum up some alternative response from Treasury officials, who continue to say, 'We can grow our economy, we can grow jobs, we can increase our incomes and we can reduce emissions from what they would otherwise be with a carbon price.' But yet again we see Senator Cormann, like a dog with a bone, trundling out the same old arguments and the same old lies.