Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

That is correct. It was in the aftermath of a really vicious and personal advertising campaign that effectively repeated most of the themes we just heard from Senator Fifield, from whom he pinches his homework. That is what we faced on one side. That was part of our choices. That internal destabilisation then cost a Prime Minister his job. What happened then is that it appears the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, delegating to Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson—the inside man—who handed a pen to the mining sector with which to write their own tax law. And what do you know? What came out of that process was something that was highly permissive and effectively geared towards a form of legalised—

Senator Fifield interjecting—

I promise I will get to that Senator Fifield. I promise I will allay your confusion. I can see you struggling with it. I will get there. Here is where I can help to resolve Senator Fifield's confusion. Our other choice is to sit on the other side of the chamber when a bill such as that is put to the vote—notwithstanding the amendments we did move, which I will get to in a moment—where there is the Abbott opposition, a political party that does not have the courage to take on the mining industry at all.