Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, I am being asked to indicate specific firms which may or may not be eligible under a program which has a particular set of criteria around access, which is in part emissions thresholds. I think the senator actually asked me this in the committee stage of the legislation which, of course, as I keep reminding the opposition, has actually passed the parliament and is the law of the land—something they obviously have not got over, given their focus on it today. Even if I had at my fingertips all of the emissions data for every firm in Australia, which I do not, I do not think it would be appropriate for a minister to be suggesting that a particular firm would or would not be entitled to assistance. If we could extrapolate this to any other program it would be very unusual for a senator to ask a minister to confirm whether a particular company or business—