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

That is a very important question that Senator Bushby is asking. Australia is a trading nation, and we always face a number of threats at any one point in time, and certainly right now there are significant global economic headwinds. In particular, the prices that we can achieve for the key commodities we export are much lower than they have been in the past. We have had to deal with the biggest fall in our terms of trade in about 50 years, and of course our economy is transitioning from the strong investment phase of the mining boom into other drivers of growth.

There is, however, another challenge that we are facing in the economy, and that is Labor, because Labor is again at it, coming up yet again not just with any carbon tax but with a turbocharged Bill Shorten version of the carbon tax. As if the Gillard version of it was not bad enough, now we have Bill Shorten, in order to get himself to Paris and away from the parliament this week, coming up with his own carbon tax. (Time expired)