Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It is very arrogant. And they expect that the opposition and the crossbenchers will go, ‘Oh, yes, because we don’t want that money going back to distillers.’ And, no, we do not. So the government think they are being very clever by forcing us to vote at the last minute—we have to have this done by midnight tonight—by catching us at the last minute, and saying, ‘If you don’t, it’ll go back to the distillers, and you don’t want that to happen, do you?’ No, we do not, but we expect the government to be honest and come up with a more thorough way of dealing with this issue.

I repeat: the Greens fundamentally believe in the price mechanism, but it is part of an overall approach. That is why we tried so hard to get a package up that at least started to address the other measures that the government need to address when they address alcohol related harm. It is not just a simple issue of putting one tax on one product. A comprehensive approach is needed, and we need to make sure that we have that comprehensive approach in place.

The government has shown bad faith with the Greens and the crossbenchers in the package that we negotiated. It has shown bad faith with the community, because it will not tell us what it intends to do with the tax if the bills go down in June. The Greens do support the collection of this money, but we are extremely disappointed in the approach the government is taking. As I said, I ask that we go into Committee of the Whole so that we can question the government and get some vital information that I think it is important for the Australian community to know.