Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

I apologise for that and I will endeavour to do so. Whilst the migration bill is the bill that has attracted the most public notice because of its highly controversial provisions, it is not the only bill that is being guillotined in this motion about which there is concern. I am advised by the member for Hunter, Mr Fitzgibbon, that the opposition had an amendment, to be moved at the consideration in detail stage, to the Fuel Tax Bill 2006 concerning the way in which fuel tax is calculated and moneys are rebated back to small businesses that have paid fuel tax. I am advised that the new arrangements being proposed by the government are highly controversial amongst small business and have been the subject of debate on the government backbench, and that the scheme that Labor is proposing—or would propose, if it were given the right to move a consideration in detail amendment in this House—would remedy this problem for affected small businesses, and a number of government backbenchers are attracted to the scheme that Labor is proposing in its amendment. So yet again—

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