Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

No, we did not exchange letters. The Minister for Industry and I wrote a letter to the Prime Minister proposing a particular course of action. Essentially, that course of action went like this: the legislation in relation to the Automotive Transformation Scheme is stuck in the Senate and has no prospect of getting through the Senate. But because of decisions taken independently by car manufacturers like Holden, Toyota and Ford to cease operations in Australia and given the declining production volumes, most of the savings will be realised without legislation. As such, we made a decision and made a recommendation to the Prime Minister not to press ahead with the legislation, and the Prime Minister agreed with our recommendation.