Here’s all the questions dogged ABC Radio journalist Samantha Hawley asked Environment Minister Greg Hunt this morning on the repeal of the carbon tax:
“… so that statement that you, that 2013/14 will be the last financial year that the carbon tax will apply, you cannot guarantee that.”
“… will business still have to pay the tax after July 1 if the bills haven’t passed?”
“… if your bills don’t pass before then, will business still have to pay the tax after July 1?”
“… what happens if the bills don’t pass the Senate and does business still have to pay the tax after July next year if they don’t?”
“Will business still have to pay the tax after that date and will it be for a full financial year?”
“And if the bill hasn’t passed though?”
“But now you’re not telling the Australian people what you’ll do if a scenario which is likely happens …?”
“… when I ask you what will happen if that isn’t passed on July 1 for business in this country, you can’t or you won’t answer that question?”
“Okay, so it will be retrospective?”
“Will it be retrospective; that is that companies will be repaid the money that they’ve paid on the tax since July the 1st next year?”
To which Hunt, obfuscating every time, simply concluded: “We’re getting way ahead of ourselves.”
Perhaps — nobody expects a weeks-old government to have finalised and enacted their policy platform, particularly with a hostile Senate until next July. But Hunt is going to need a better answer for the next nine months. His government campaigned, hell-bent, for the removal of the carbon price from the day it was announced. Tony Abbott won an election on that campaign. Now the Coalition has to deliver. At the very least, it needs a plan for the inevitable: when Labor joins with the Greens in blocking any move to repeal carbon pricing legislation while the current Senate sits.
As Paddy Manning reports for Crikey today, there’s very little in the government’s draft legislation to suggest how it will deliver on its promise, its solemn vow, to stop business — and consumers — from paying the carbon tax.
This is “Plan BS”?
I can’t wait to save all this money they’re promising we will – “while power costs won’t rise for other reasons”?
Like they did but with which Abbott and Hunt weren’t interested when the Carbon Tax began – they were too interested in “Scare-mongering for Votes!”.
Usual ALPBC stuff.
Ms Hawley needs to lighten up and listen instead of talking, they don’t do Pulitzer in Australia and Hunt needs to learn how to shut down this form of badgering.
He’s right lets not get ahead of ourselves, it took the last Government 6 years to reduce us to penury it os not going to be fixed by this or any other Government in 3 months.
Get a life folks.
You’re being a bit generous there, Crikey Ed. I DO expect “a weeks-old government to have finalised … their policy platform” at least in relation to something they ran on so strongly, not just in the election campaign but the entire period of Opposition.
I heard that interview. Hunt sounded like an evasive twit.
I’m fascinated by a proposed Bill that says whether it is passed by Parliament or not, it will become law. Is that “elle ay doubleyoo law”, Liberal style? Bring it on. Let’s re-write the Westminster system of government. Heaven knows ministerial accountability (that antique!) and propriety went out the window years ago.
Strange how it all falls apart like a cheap (taxpayer funded wedding) suit as soon as they’re forced to move from three word slogans to reality. Apparently, according to Hunt at least, the repeal legislation is so brilliant that it will get rid of the tax even if it doesn’t pass parliament! About time Australia had rule by diktat. I also look forward to the potential for companies and individuals deciding to not pay tax by reason of potential repealing legislation. I’m sure they’ll have no problems in the courts defending that!
@Gary Gaunt: Umm, no. Hawley asked a decent question, Hunt tried to bulls*it his way out of it (repeatedly) and got called out (repeatedly). Given that we’ve had three years of Coalition sooking about the “carbon tax”, surely it’s not too much to expect that they’ve actually thought through properly how it will repeal it and the practicalities of that process. Hunt isn’t allowed to invent reality based on legislation that hasn’t even entered parliament yet, let alone passed it. The only problem is that this sort of scrutiny wasn’t applied to Coalition “policy” before the election.
As for learning how to “how to shut down this form of badgering”, his boss seems pretty good at it. Just run away as soon as the questions get a bit tougher than “Why are you so awesome, Mr Abbott?”. Seems to work fine for him.