Senator RONALDSON (Victoria) (16:31): I quite like Senator Pratt. Senator Pratt: Thank you! Senator RONALDSON: I do! I think that she honestly believed some of the things that she said. But I have never seen better attack points for our arguments about the carbon tax than we saw from the senator today. If someone told me about that speech and I had not heard it, I would have said, 'That's not right; she couldn't possibly have made those comments.' I would have had to go to Hansard to double check. I would have said, 'No, no, she wouldn't have said that today, surely.' Luckily enough I am here to hear it. I consider myself one of the luckiest senators in this chamber today because I was here. I can see the Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations at the table thinking to herself, 'Should I call a quorum so that we do not expose— Senator Jacinta Collins: I rise on a point of order. I ask that the senator not misrepresent me in the chamber. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Fisher ): Senator Ronaldson, would you care to rephrase? Senator RONALDSON: No, I said, 'I looked at the parliamentary secretary and thought to myself, "I bet she wishes she could call a quorum to stop this."' And I can understand why the parliamentary secretary would want to put an end to it. Sometimes 10 minutes is far too long. I am not sure that three minutes would have saved your bacon but it certainly would have stopped this. We have been told by the good senator today that there is absolutely no issue about working out compensation if you do not know what the carbon price will be. According to the senator it is quite easy and she wonders why you would be worried about setting a compensation package without knowing what the carbon price is. How utterly silly of us to think that you can get a compensation package without actually knowing what the price is! Silly old us! We have clearly missed the point here. Silly old us because we have been saying for some time now that if you tax business, business will pass the cost on. 'No,' said the Prime Minister, 'That is outrageous.' 'No,' says the Treasurer, 'How can you possibly say that?' Fortunately I was here today to hear the good Senator Pratt acknowledge it. I quote her: 'Of course they're going to pass it on.' Senator Birmingham: She speaks the truth. Senator RONALDSON: The truth. There is a lot more truth from the good senator than from her leader, who said before the last election, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' We have the truthful senator across the chamber here and we have the untruthful Prime Minister in relation to the carbon tax. We have been saying for some time that none of these other countries is going to act. Particularly, the developing countries will not act in relation to this issue. We have been saying that that is a real matter of concern because, given our contribution to pollution levels, that is an issue. And the good senator has said today, 'They are not going to play their part.' So we have had today an extraordinary contribution. If one of my own had made this speech I would have patted them on the back and said, 'That was a marvellous speech.' But it was not from one of ours. I wonder whether the parliamentary secretary, who is now jumping up and down and who probably wants, even more, to call a quorum, is aware of a Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit report, which was tabled today. My good friend the member for Kooyong has alerted me to this issue. The Commissioner of Taxation revealed today that the Australian Taxation Office was not consulted prior to the announcing of the latest incarnation of the carbon tax. I will repeat the quote from the ATO's supplementary submission to the committee. The parliamentary secretary should listen to this: The ATO was not consulted on the current proposal for a carbon price, as the matter was being handled by another department. It was not consulted. That is extraordinary. Who is going to be administering the tax? Senator Williams: The tax office. Senator RONALDSON: The Australian tax office. And they were not consulted—what an extraordinary revelation today from the ATO. What an extraordinary revelation: they were not consulted. But does it really surprise you when it comes from a government who has now got the reputation of being a knee-jerk reaction government who have completely and utterly lost any ability to govern this country? We had a question which I am quite indignant about today from the senator from the Northern Territory about Indigenous issues, when she should have asked Senator Arbib: 'What are you doing about Indigenous employment as a result of this knee-jerk reaction in the Northern Territory?' That is the question that should have been asked today. How many of those stockmen are going to lose their jobs as a result of your government's knee-jerk reaction? Did you consult with the Indonesian government? No, you most certainly did not. I will just have a quick look through some of the recent press in the time that is left to me to tell the Australian community again—of course, Senator Pratt will accept everything that I say because she and I agree on a lot of things!—that when we look at the Greens-Labor alliance— Senator Williams: And the Independents. Senator RONALDSON: The Independents have again made their little contribution to this, and people, in New South Wales particularly, will not forget what Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor have done in relation to these issues. For example, today it was reported that RMIT economists have issued a report, and their research shows that if the Greens policy to shut down the coal industry was implemented it would see 200,000 jobs lost and cost our economy between $29 billion and $36 billion a year, without reducing global carbon emissions—200,000 jobs. I ask those opposite: are you serious about having as your partner a political party that will destroy the coal industry? Are you happy to have as your partner a political party which will destroy the cattle industry? Another report shows that the Cattle Council of Australia and the NFF, the National Farmers Federation, have conducted independent research which shows that there will be a $700,000 impost on cattle producers with a carbon tax. That impost will range 'from $4,200 for beef producers in Victoria to $9,200 for graziers in Queensland'. So we have the coal industry, the Australian Taxation Office, which has not had any input into this at all, and the cattle industry. Then, of course, we have the senior partner, the leader of the Greens-Labor alliance, who happens to sit in our chamber, the man who fronts up every Monday morning in the Prime Minister's office and says: 'This is what you're going to do.' What did Senator Brown—this is not the senator who changed her name to Rhiannon, I hasten to add; this is Senator Bob Brown—say about the Prime Minister's announcement yesterday in relation to the effect on petrol with a carbon tax? I will read it so those in the gallery can hear and so those opposite can hear, because they are the ones, quite frankly, who need to know what is going on. This is from an article in the Age this morning by Richard Willingham: But Senator Brown, who had campaigned for petrol to be included— Senator Polley interjecting— Senator RONALDSON: Oh, so you do not like the Age now, either? So the Australian you don't like and now you don't like the Age: there's no-one left, Senator, for you to dislike in the media! The article says: But Senator Brown, who had campaigned for petrol to be included in the tax, said: ''Forever is a very brave word in politics. Down the line I think there is an inevitability that all fossil fuels will, under the weight of evidence that they should, pay the full cost of the creation of climate change.'' In other words— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Fisher ): Sadly, Senator Ronaldson, your time is up. Of course, you did intend, didn't you, Senator, your references to be to 'Mr' Oakeshott and 'Mr' Windsor during your interesting discourse? Senator Ronaldson: I did indeed, Madam Acting Deputy President.