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

As an open and trading economy we are always exposed to risks related to the state of the global economy, and of course at the moment we are dealing with significant falls in the price we can achieve for our key commodity exports. That is why it is so important for us to continue to pursue reforms that make us more competitive, such as our focus on a growth-friendly tax system for the future.

But the serious risk that our economy faces is that Labor has not learned its lesson from its last period in government. In the last period in government Labor gave us the Gillard carbon tax—at about $30 a tonne when they lost government. And now we are looking at the $200 Shorten carbon supertax, the $200 CST. It would be very bad for the economy. It would hurt jobs. It would hurt investment. It would hurt economic growth. It would shrink the economy by about $600 billion over 15 years. That is the last thing that Australia needs. (Time expired)