Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

The government will not be supporting the two amendments. I have just a couple of points to make. I do not want to take the time of the Senate overly; this matter has been well canvassed and well covered by the Senate economics committee.

One point that Senator Cormann made that I do disagree with is this: he claimed that the market, because of the government's decision, had been disrupted. But coincid­ence is not causation. The market was disrupted, but it was not as a result of the government; it was as a result of the general market disruption we were seeing through the global financial crisis. That is the first point I would make.

The second point is that the government did appoint an independent expert. Professor Ken Davis was hired to evaluate the appropriate level of the benchmark rate. He found the appropriate rate was of a similar order of magnitude to the housing loan rate. He found that the upper limit of what was appropriate was the margin lending rate. So the rate that is being proposed, the housing loan rate plus 100 basis points, is around the middle of the range that was deemed appropriate by the expert. Setting the rate in the range proposed by the expert was supported by the Senate economics committee. As I have said, there was a fair amount of attention given to this matter in its report and it has been well outlined by my colleague Senator Hurley.

The government believes this is a reasonable, fair and balanced approach to setting the benchmark. Should the opposition's amendments be successful, I think it would cost government revenue of $46 million over four years on the forward estimates. And I would point out that the matter of contention is just one of the measures contained in the bill. There are a number of other important measures in this legislation and they have been touched on in the broader second reading debate. There are measures to assist taxpayers and the film industry, tax rebates for school uniforms et cetera. So I would urge the Senate to pass the bill without these two amendments—to reject these two amendments.