Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

We again have an opportunity to get this stimulus package out there working for the economy. We will know within a few hours whether that is going to happen or not. The stakes are very high indeed. Listening to the opposition and the government a moment ago reminds me of how strange the world can be. Meanwhile outside the parliament we have Chinalco and Rio Tinto, the commissars of communism and the captains of capitalism, getting together and trying to get the Beijing power elite a purchase hold on Australian resources, shutting out their shareholders along the way. It is going to be interesting to see what happens there.

The Greens have been concerned about this package. I have made that very clear. In particular, we have had a lot of feedback from the public about what the opposition has called the cash splash—the tax bonuses. Billions of dollars going to—