Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (Senator Carr) to questions without notice asked by Senators Abetz, Cormann and Macdonald today, relating to research and development.

The minister’s answers to the questions asked today bordered on absolutely delusional, and they demonstrated to the people of Australia just how out of touch and just how disconnected the Labor Party are with both the domestic and the international reaction to Rudd Labor’s supertax. The minister had the gall to call us on this side economic—what was it?—‘knuckle draggers’. I have to say the only economic knuckle dragger in this place is the minister.

This proposed tax is economic vandalism; it is economic lunacy from a dangerous government that does not have a clue about economic management. Even the Labor premiers are now running a mile from Rudd Labor and its proposed supertax. Look at what the Australian says today, under the headline ‘Labor states back big mining companies on resources profits tax’:

South Australia’s Labor Treasurer, Kevin Foley, has declared he plans to travel to Canberra with BHP Billiton to lobby his federal colleagues to change the resources tax, while Queensland Premier Anna Bligh yesterday called on the Rudd government to “get it right” on the tax or it would threaten jobs around the country.

This is the impact of Mr Rudd’s announcement to date. The article continues:

Mining investment and exploration continued to be threatened yesterday as $300 million was chopped off the takeover bid for Macarthur Coal in Queensland … Incitec Pivot stopped drilling for phosphate; Xstrata cancelled projects; and Macquarie Bank advised clients Australia was “now seen as being a high sovereign risk destination to invest” …

What an absolute joke! Under this government, Australia’s sovereign risk is now being questioned.