Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry and Science) Share this | Hansard source

It does not please me to follow such a disappointingly woeful and sleep-inducing performance from a particularly unconvincing parliamentary secretary. He did talk about being divorced from reality. Let me inform the House of an example of what it means to be divorced from reality when we talk about the carbon tax.

The member for Isaacs occasionally speaks to some of the manufacturers in his electorate—and he has got a lot of them. He attended a meeting last year where he was asked a question by an entrepreneur, a businessperson who invests in manufacturing and who at the moment is experiencing wafer-thin profit margins, if any at all. The member for Isaacs, who is at the table, turns his back, of course, like he turns his back on those hardworking businesses and the people they employ in his own electorate. This businessperson said to the member for Isaacs, 'A carbon tax will increase my electricity bill and a carbon tax will make it very difficult for my business to be viable,' and he went on and explained that. What did the member for Isaacs—that great entrepreneur, with experience in running a business and putting all his money at risk to have a go in the free market—say? He said words to the effect of, 'Well, maybe you're in the wrong business.' So we have got a parliamentary secretary in the area of climate change and now industry—which is quite irrational—saying, 'We are going to impose all these additional government taxes and charges on you, including the carbon tax, and if you cannot be competitive because of those additional costs we have imposed upon you, well, you run a bad business model.' It is pathetic. That, my friend from Isaacs, is—

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