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

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. I ask the minister if she has bothered to read the evidence given to any number of Senate committees where this type of action was predicted. It has been predicted very, very accurately. Is she aware that business after business has indicated that investment in these industries would fall off with the Rudd government’s ETS? Is the minister aware, from evidence given at a Senate committee, that the three-quarters of a billion dollar Cement Australia plant in Gladstone that was to begin construction this year has also been shelved? Do you have any feeling for those working Australians in Rockhampton and Gladstone who are now without a job, to a large degree because of Labor’s incompetence in Queensland, with the increase in taxes, and your own emissions trading scheme, Minister? Will you now admit that it has been disastrous for Australian workers? (Time expired)