Senator WONG (South Australia—Minister for Finance and Deregulation) (14:05): The senator would be aware from the mid-year review release that the government has written down MRRT revenues quite significantly in the budget update. Obviously this is due to the larger than expected drop in commodity prices in the September quarter and a drop of some 38 per cent in the iron ore spot price between budget and early September. We anticipate collecting some $9.1 billion over the forward estimates, based on Treasury's current commodity price assumptions. In the question the senator asked he is, I think, really reiterating the same issue he has very consistently and stubbornly pursued. Senator Brandis: Mr President, I rise on a point of order on the question of direct relevance. What the question asked was: by how much would commodity prices for two commodities, iron ore and coal, have to rise—those were the terms of the question—for the revenue projections to be validated? Given that, in the answer so far, the minister has shown a great familiarity with the downward movements in the prices of those commodities, and given that Senator Cormann did the minister the courtesy of giving advance notice of this question earlier in the day so the very issue which she has shown that she is familiar with could be addressed in her answer, and is on notice, can I ask you, Mr President, to direct the minister to the very question asked of her: by how much would the price of those two commodities have to rise for the revenue projections to be valid? Senator Chris Evans: Mr President, I rise on the point of order, firstly, to make the obvious point that Senator Wong is directly on the question asked of her and providing information to the Senate and, secondly, to make the point that the provision of a letter to the minister on the morning of a Senate question time is not a means by which one can register a question on notice and bears no relationship to what is required at question time in terms of questions without notice. The PRESIDENT: Order! There is no point of order. I cannot instruct the minister how to answer the question. The minister still has 17 seconds remaining to answer the question. I believe the minister is answering the question. Senator WONG: Thank you, Mr President. What I was going to go on and say before I was interrupted was that, as was the case under the former government, Treasury does not publish its commodity price assumptions, because they are based on commercially sensitive information from industry. So the whole point— (Time expired)