Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, Senator, you are probably right: chaos rules. But this could be a lesson to cabinet in future. Last night could be another lesson. There is a future lesson coming up on salary sacrifice. We are going to be in for another salutary lesson. We continue to go down this course of head down, tail up, and no-one gives anything any degree of thought. I cannot say strongly enough that we are going to have to vote for this whether we like it or not. We cannot knock all of the government’s budget over. We have to let them make their own mistakes. They are the government, and we cannot hold their hand and block things that they want. We are going to have to let some of these things go through.

We will find that this is going to have a huge impact on the tourism industry, which is already suffering. North Queensland, in particular, has just had a triple whammy. The fishing fleet is just about all tied up there. People are terribly worried. Then you have the sugar industry, where they are losing about $30 a tonne. They have to keep their farms going because if they do not they will not keep the mills going, and if the mills close they do not have a future. It is not that they want to do it, but they have to do it. They have to keep the mills going and lose money. And then of course there is the tourism industry. So North Queensland is really going to be hit very, very hard. I do not know what more I can say.