Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

The people listening in will have heard the Australian Greens yet again abusing the forums of this chamber whilst pretending to be the champion of the Senate. What I was saying before Senator Milne raised her pathetic point of order in a desperate attempt to stop me in my stride from making my point was this: as soon as this matter was announced, within a matter of days we as an opposition announced that we would consider the luxury car tax in some great detail, but one aspect we would not countenance was the retrospectivity of it. We announced that long before we announced our total opposition to the luxury car tax legislation because we wanted to go through it with a fine tooth comb. Indeed, there is media story after media story indicating that that was our very principled position. But, of course, Senator Milne, who comes into this debate very, very late in the piece, would not be aware of all that prior history, but in a desperate attempt to make a cheap political point seeks to completely distort the history and the facts of this situation.

We as an opposition came out within a matter of days after the federal budget announcement saying we would oppose the retrospectivity and the other aspects of the luxury car tax we would examine in some detail prior to determining our final position. That is clearly on the public record. You really do have to ask: what motivates a senator, clothed in absolute ignorance of the facts, to get up and make such a misrepresentation of those facts? You have to ask what motivates it. What is it that goes on in Senator Milne’s mind that she thinks that she somehow value-adds to this debate by distorting the facts? And, might I add, they were the objective facts. We issued media releases about that. We were reported in the media. I did radio interviews about it and was asked: what is your position on the luxury car tax per se? My answer was, ‘We are still considering it.’ That is well and truly on the record.

Having further examined the luxury car tax, we believe it to be fatally flawed, but what we are witnessing this evening is all the crossbench parties supporting and voting with each other in relation to amendments that are, in fact, inconsistent and not normally within their policy framework and within their policy structure. Undoubtedly, the deals have been done, and that is fine, and the numbers will fall where they will. But I will not allow the Australian Greens to so distort the history of what occurred in relation to the opposition’s very principled stance virtually from day one.