Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The government is taking action on the question of carbon pollution and motor vehicles. We are doing that in what we think is a most appropriate way. First and foremost, in the recent budget—and, presum­ably, the member who asked the question looked at the recent budget—we made a change to the fringe benefits tax arran­gements. The arrangements we inherited had an artificial incentive for people to drive their cars further to get a tax advantage. All of us would have heard the stories from the community, and our friends and others would have heard the stories, of people who have spent every weekend in June driving their cars extraordinary distances for no purpose other than to trigger a move into a different fringe benefits tax arrangement. It was a dreadful scheme for the environment and something we addressed in the recent budget. During the election campaign we committed to mandatory fuel emission standards for 2015—

Mr Tony Smith interjecting—

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