Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Hansard source

The proposal that the government has put to us is that we senators were all pleased with the briefing that we got. It is true that we were pleased. We were pleased by the fact that Treasury officers confirmed that no modelling had been undertaken. The point of my question was for you to confirm with officers in the box at the moment whether that information was accurate. We have a situation here where the government is proposing measures fundamentally different from the original bill which directly and adversely affect manufacturers in this country.

The amendments proposed by Senator Wang fundamentally change the measures in the original bill. We had a bill that set a threshold excluding particular firms from accessing the incentive. Now we are debating a measure that puts a cap on how much R&D expenditure firms can claim. On that basis, Minister, how can you say that this has the same effect as the original bill? It is a fundamentally different measure drafted by Treasury officers without any modelling and without any knowledge of the consequences of it other than your guesswork. How can you make the claim that this has the same effect as the original bill?