Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

What about your last 20—did they have air conditioners? Don’t talk to me; I guarantee that if you are a truck driver it is a long time since you have driven in a cab that was not air conditioned—and neither should you. I am surprised that any union man would suggest that people should not drive air-conditioned trucks when they are going from Cairns to Karumba to Darwin to Kununurra to Broome. They are essentials, not a luxury. A Rolex watch is a luxury, a jet plane is a luxury, jewellery is a luxury—all those things are luxuries. Air conditioning in a four-wheel drive is not a luxury. Senator Fielding, this is the trouble: where do you draw the line? In all good faith, you said, ‘Yes, let’s exclude primary producers one vehicle.’ I can understand that but once you start saying, ‘If you have one, that’s okay but if you have two’—as I said earlier, it is a bit like the uranium policy: if uranium comes from three mines, it is good uranium; if it comes from a fourth, it is bad uranium. It is a bit like a vehicle. One primary production vehicle is good—