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

The truth. There is a lot more truth from the good senator than from her leader, who said before the last election, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' We have the truthful senator across the chamber here and we have the untruthful Prime Minister in relation to the carbon tax.

We have been saying for some time that none of these other countries is going to act. Particularly, the developing countries will not act in relation to this issue. We have been saying that that is a real matter of concern because, given our contribution to pollution levels, that is an issue. And the good senator has said today, 'They are not going to play their part.'

So we have had today an extraordinary contribution. If one of my own had made this speech I would have patted them on the back and said, 'That was a marvellous speech.' But it was not from one of ours. I wonder whether the parliamentary secretary, who is now jumping up and down and who probably wants, even more, to call a quorum, is aware of a Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit report, which was tabled today. My good friend the member for Kooyong has alerted me to this issue. The Commissioner of Taxation revealed today that the Australian Taxation Office was not consulted prior to the announcing of the latest incarnation of the carbon tax. I will repeat the quote from the ATO's supplementary submission to the committee. The parliamentary secretary should listen to this:

The ATO was not consulted on the current proposal for a carbon price, as the matter was being handled by another department.

It was not consulted. That is extraordinary. Who is going to be administering the tax?