Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Materiel) Share this | Hansard source

I think I need to remind members of the government that this is not an open-ended debate that has been placed before the Senate as a matter of public importance today. It is actually a debate about something quite specific—that is, the increased cost pressures on charitable and not-for-profit organisations and the voluntary sector through the introduction of a carbon tax. I appreciate that government members have got their stock standard speeches available to deal with the increasing number of Australians who want to raise concerns about the carbon tax, but the point that the opposition is raising with the matter of public importance today is that there are elements of the government's carbon tax plan which have not been thought through and which the government needs to address as quickly as it can because this tax is coming down the wire.