Senator WONG (South Australia—Minister for Finance and Deregulation) (14:36): First of all, I do not take as read the suggestion from the senator that the cost over a month is as a result of carbon, as she indicated. It may be the case, but— Opposition senators: She is precious! Senator WONG: All three of you said it then, so you could at least do it one at a time! The PRESIDENT: Order! I remind senators that interjections across the chamber are disorderly. Senator WONG: As we have previously discussed in this place on a number of occasions, there have been substantial increases in electricity prices for some years. The vast majority of those have occurred as a result of investment in poles and wires, and the Prime Minister has indicated her intention to work through the COAG process to try to ensure that we see a more efficient way of dealing with these network issues so that consumers are protected from the sorts of price increases we have seen over recent years. On that front, I would certainly disagree with the contention in the senator's question. The Prime Minister is very well aware of the pressures that high electricity prices are causing, which is why she has indicated her intention to work through the COAG process to seek to deal with the driver of the largest component of electricity cost increases, which is infrastructure costs. In relation to agriculture, I would remind the senator that, of course, agriculture is excluded from the carbon price mechanism. In relation to— Senator Nash: Mr President, I rise on a point of order on relevance. The minister was specifically asked whether or not she agreed with the Prime Minister that the fruit-packing business should pass on its additional costs caused by the carbon tax in full. The PRESIDENT: The question was broader than that. The minister is answering the question, and the minister does have 23 seconds still remaining to answer the question. Senator WONG: Thank you, Mr President. In relation to the last bit, I was responding to a number of aspects of the question. If the senator only wants to ask one aspect, I am quite happy not to take multibarrelled questions which give me the opportunity to talk about many things. But, when it comes to the impact in terms of price increase, I think the point the Prime Minister was making is that our Household Assistance Package— Senator Nash: It's not a household. Senator WONG: does assume cost pass-through.