Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The National Party was not in any way part and parcel of the $5.5 billion reduction in household assistance. In fact, we want to exempt households completely and make sure that those working families, those pensioners, those who live in the quiet streets in the weatherboards and the brick-and-tiles do not have to pay anything for this ludicrous, unilateral attempt to change the temperature of the globe by Minister Wong’s office. That is what is being inspired here—a unilateral attempt by Kevin Rudd to change the temperature of the globe. Is the temperature of the globe going to change from the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s office? Is the temperature of the globe going to change because of a piece of legislation that is inspired by Minister Wong? No, it is not. Even now we would have to query the extent to which they are actually going to reduce carbon emissions. We have still got this confusion where we are looking at 2008 modelling on a 2009 proposition. We take in piece and parcel bits and pieces of it. We have had an appreciation of the dollar, yet the modelling stays the same. Frontier Economics has been talking about a $3.7 billion hole. This is where this modelling leads in 2020. There is currently a $2.5 billion hole. This just goes to show the paucity of economic acumen in the Labor Party and also the self-indulgent position that they would inflict on Australian working families, on pensioners, on farmers and on small business. This sort of tax—