Mr HOCKEY (North Sydney—The Treasurer) (14:29): I thank the member for Barker— Mr Fitzgibbon: Madam Speaker, standing order 100(d) is very clear. Shall I take that as a ruling— The SPEAKER: There is no point of order. The Treasurer has the call. Mr Fitzgibbon: Madam Speaker, I am asking you the question: do we consider that you are ruling— The SPEAKER: You do not ask the Speaker questions. Mr HOCKEY: I thank the member for Barker for his very good question, because he wants to get rid of the carbon tax, and Mr Warren McLean from the Master Butchers Co-op wants to get rid of the carbon tax—in fact, Australia wants to get rid of the carbon tax. The only people who don't want to get rid of the carbon tax are the Labor Party and the Greens, who want to keep the carbon tax in place. What is true, what is irrefutable, is that the carbon tax adds to the cost of business in Australia. As General Motors said yesterday, we have become a high-cost country for production. And as the Master Butchers Co-op have said, they are having to deal with a $330,000 increase in electricity and gas bills because of the carbon tax. Opposition members interjecting— Mr HOCKEY: That is in 2012-13. According to MBL that equates to $15,000 per employee. That is their carbon tax bill. If they cannot pass that on to customers, particularly in a global marketplace—the way, for example, Virgin said that they could not pass on the carbon tax to their customers— Mr Husic interjecting— The SPEAKER: The member for Chifley is warned! Mr HOCKEY: and Qantas said they had to absorb overwhelmingly the cost of the carbon tax. If businesses need to absorb the cost of the carbon tax, it increases the cost of production, it reduces the profitability of the business and then people start to look to invest elsewhere. It is a no-brainer. The Labor Party does not understand that, if you keep laying taxes and more regulation on Australian businesses, sooner or later they will look for cheaper places to go and work: they will look into Asia; they will look into other parts of the world where there is no carbon tax, where there is no excessive regulation, where there is no union militancy, where there is an environment that is conducive to investment and growth. The fact is the coalition knows this. We know that the best way to remain competitive, the best way to meet head-on the challenges of the world, is to reduce the cost of doing business in Australia—get rid of the carbon tax, get rid of the mining tax, get rid of the regulation. The Labor Party want to keep all the impediments to business growth and then they want to cry crocodile tears when people go and invest elsewhere and turn away from Australia. I say to the Labor Party: get real—if you want to really help production in Australia, get rid of the carbon tax.