Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

No, I said, 'I looked at the parliamentary secretary and thought to myself, "I bet she wishes she could call a quorum to stop this."' And I can understand why the parliamentary secretary would want to put an end to it. Sometimes 10 minutes is far too long. I am not sure that three minutes would have saved your bacon but it certainly would have stopped this.

We have been told by the good senator today that there is absolutely no issue about working out compensation if you do not know what the carbon price will be. According to the senator it is quite easy and she wonders why you would be worried about setting a compensation package with­out knowing what the carbon price is. How utterly silly of us to think that you can get a compensation package without actually knowing what the price is! Silly old us! We have clearly missed the point here.

Silly old us because we have been saying for some time now that if you tax business, business will pass the cost on. 'No,' said the Prime Minister, 'That is outrageous.' 'No,' says the Treasurer, 'How can you possibly say that?' Fortunately I was here today to hear the good Senator Pratt acknowledge it. I quote her: 'Of course they're going to pass it on.'