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

I invite Senator Fielding to respond to those questions because they really are genuinely important questions that I believe do demand an answer especially in circumstances where Senator Fielding previously gave a speech saying that this was a tax grab. He then went through all the problems with this tax. Since then he has come out accepting a deal where he has supported the price reduction of 25 imported vehicles at the expense of the Australian motor vehicle manufacturing industry and has then limited himself to amendments which will be quite minuscule.

I somehow think that Senator Fielding thought that he was getting a Rottweiler pup, whereas in fact he got a Shih Tzu pup instead—a little lapdog for a bit of comfort as opposed to that which he was going to so solidly support, and that is the rural and regional areas of this country and the families doing it tough out there. Now we are only doing it for primary producers and tourism operators and in circumstances where the government has sold him the idea on the basis that they might introduce regulations in relation to tourism operators. I would have thought that the activities that will be allowed—and even those would be further regulated—indicate what the government’s intention here is. It is to restrict this as much as possible.

Also I would like an answer as to why in his proposed amendments he says that a tourism operator only gets a refund entitlement if the commissioner is satisfied that the person will use the car solely for the purpose of carrying on a business. Does that mean therefore that, if you allow somebody—an employee, for example—to take the car home and they divert for half a kilometre to buy a litre of milk on the way home, you could no longer honestly assert to the tax commissioner that the vehicle was used solely for the purposes of carrying on a business? As a result, the tax exemption would be forfeited.

Then it begs the question: what happens if you see somebody stuck at the side of the road? Do you offer them a tow or not? Is that for the purposes of carrying on a business? You see somebody hurt on the side of the road that needs to be taken to hospital. Are you not carrying on a business if you do that and you lose your tax exemption? I ask Family First: did they canvass all these sorts of questions with Treasury and with the government before accepting what now looks like a very tawdry deal which I am sure in his heart of hearts Senator Fielding cannot accept?

What I want to know as well is why he would have voted to exempt completely those 25 imported models from not only the eight per cent increase but also the existing 25 per cent that currently applies, completely exempting 25 makes of foreign imported motor vehicles. Yet the deal that he got for primary producers, who he acknowledges are doing it tough, has the exemption not from the full 25 per cent and eight per cent, as with these other imported vehicles, but only the eight per cent increase. Is the green cohort that drives the Alpha Romeo, the BMW, the Audi or whatever else more deserving than the primary producers? I am just wondering why the deal was struck in the manner that it was especially with these open-ended regulations that really mean that Senator Fielding does not know what he is getting—and I think we need some clarity on this, Madam Temporary Chair—unless there has been a deal and an indication has been given to Senator Fielding about what the government will do in relation to the regulations and, if that has been done, then I think we as a Senate are entitled to know what that deal is.