Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Why does the Gillard Labor government think it is fair to force Australian businesses to pay five times as much carbon tax over the next three years as all of the businesses across 30 European countries combined? Does the Gillard government really not realise that this pushes up the cost of doing business in Australia by much more than in Europe and reduces our capacity to compete even with higher emitting businesses in Europe, let alone the US, Asia, Africa and South America?