Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Carr of course wants to focus on the Ferrari. Senator Carr, how about the 4,754 Statesmen and Caprices sold in Australia last year, all of them built in South Australia? You may want to talk about Ferraris; there are not that many Ferraris sold in Australia each year, Senator Carr.

As has already been indicated, the opposition will be moving its own amendment to impose a threshold that would cover the issues of four-wheel drives, a threshold of $90,000 for this tax hike. Senator Carr, that would mean the tax would cover your Ferraris, but it would exempt the Statesmen and Caprices built in my state of South Australia and the Ford Fairlanes which have been built in your state of Victoria and which I understand Ford is planning to discontinue production of—no surprise, of course, knowing that this government wishes put this tax hike on luxury cars and Australian made vehicles like this. This decision of the government hurts the Australian automotive industry. They have railed against it and they expect us to do our bit to support this industry. I find it remarkable that the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research somehow thinks this policy, which hits a sector that he claims to support aggressively yet obviously delivers so little to, is good policy. That is why we on this side are determined to make sure we stand up for the interests of the industry and of the many thousands of Australians who are hit by this and who would be left out even from the effect of the amendments that are proposed by the minor parties. It is why in all honesty we should be ashamed that the government has put this tax hike back on the table so soon after the Senate quite rightly rejected it. I hope the Senate will reject it again.