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

There was certainly a lot of speculation in that little question. I know Senator Birmingham is desperately trying to demonstrate that he can mix it with the best and throw all these questions at the government, but, really, that was a question almost entirely—I will give him one credit—based on speculation. It is true that I was asked about an earlier move to a floating price and my answer reflected the proposition I put in response to his primary question, which is that we have already paid for and costed the carbon package, the Clean Energy Future package, in the budget and the bottom line still shows a return to surplus in 2012-13— something those opposite, out of the mouth of the shadow finance minister, have already walked away from. I have previously said we will update the figures in the usual way in the budget. (Time expired)