Arthur Sinodinos (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Bernardi. On the money, as usual.

During the consultations with industry on the exposure draft of the 2010 legislation, industry clearly warned Treasury and the government that they had got their costings wrong and that the proposed changes would lead to much higher deductions being claimed, which would lead to a reduction in revenue. What has happened? It has come about that these people in the private sector, speaking sincerely in the context of consultations, made the government aware of the potential for significant deductions. The government did make some changes in the Senate in 2010, I do not know at whose behest, but they still did not address the key issues that had clearly been identified during the consultation process, particularly around the costings of the measures, so these predictions have come true.

They remind me very much of what happened with the mining tax, where, in a windowless room in Treasury or somewhere else, the gang of four—Gillard, Swan, Tanner and Rudd—sat down and worked out the resource super profits tax with a small group from Treasury. They did the modelling, and then what happened is that when they took it out there—