Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

Or, as Senator Macdonald points out, the other contributors thus far. The question before us is whether the package of bills be taken together. I would have thought that if there has ever been a package of bills that has been more widely canvassed before an election, or the policy that these bills seek to give effect to, it would be this particular package of bills. I know that those opposite say there is the importance of the need for scrutiny. Of course, absolutely, we agree with that. That is why the government itself referred the package of bills to the legislation committee for inquiry. What the great difference is here to our predecessors in government is that what we are actually seeking to give effect to is an election commitment to abolish the carbon tax and to abolish a number of agencies. The previous government introduced legislation that actually sought to break an election commitment not to introduce a carbon tax. There was an inquiry at that time for that package of legislation as well, an inquiry, I might say, that went for about as long as the inquiry that we instigated. As I said before, the difference was our inquiry was into a package of legislation that actually sought to give effect to an election commitment.

I am not going to detain the chamber any longer because I think it is important that we get to the substantive debate as quickly as possible, but I just did not think that the contributions of Senator Cameron and Senator Milne could go unanswered.