Senator WONG (South Australia—Minister for Finance and Deregulation) (14:39): I have to say that when it comes to trade and international permits what we see from the Liberal Party on this issue is the same as we saw from the Liberal Party in relation to the IMF: a new protectionist and xenophobic Liberal Party, ladies and gentlemen. Here they are, the party that used to be the party of free trade, the party that used to believe in lowest economic cost, the party that used to believe in institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. What are they like now? Perhaps the National Party. The Liberals have actually morphed into the National Party when it comes to national economic policy. Senator Birmingham comes in here and tries to ask a question based around budget impact, but really what he is saying is: 'We don't like international trading. We are going to have our leader go out and talk about shonks in Nigeria and drum up the xenophobia.' Speaking of which— Senator Ian Macdonald: Mr President, I raise a point of order on relevance. This incompetent minister has yet again followed her usual practice of spending more than half of her allotted answering time in attacking the questioner and attacking the Liberal Party. Can you bring her to order and ask her to answer the question— The PRESIDENT: There is no point of order. The minister has 53 seconds remaining. Senator WONG: The reason we want international trading is that we believe that Australian companies should be able to reduce emissions at lowest cost. Isn't that a radical proposition? We actually want to ensure that business can reduce emissions at the lowest cost—something that the Liberal Party now opposes. What the Liberal Party wants is higher costs for the economy, higher costs for Australian business and, incidentally, higher costs for Australian workers. As part of the question I was also asked about compensation. As the senator would know, we have already outlined a very substantial tax reform package as part of the clean energy package: a tripling of that tax-free threshold, increases in pensions and increases in the disability support pension—all of which would be ripped away by those opposite.