Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Stephen Conroy, the Minister representing the Treasurer. I refer the minister to the comments of plasterer David McKinlay, from Brisbane—on page 1 of the Australian today—who said that the tax on ready-to-drink alcohol such as cans of Bundy and Coke is ‘unfair’. Does the minister agree that the government’s new tax is unfair? Can the minister tell the Senate what has changed since July 2004, when the present Rudd minister Mr Martin Ferguson said that ‘taxing RTDs at a higher rate would be unfair’?