Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Deputy Chairman , Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Hansard source

In following the member for Denison and his remarks on LPG, let me highlight that what government members in this House will do when these bills—the Taxation of Alternative Fuels Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 and cognate bills—come to a vote is knowingly vote to damage the LPG industry in Australia. Members opposite need to understand that. It is pure and simple. What we will have from senior ministers opposite is attempts to talk about what they say is their consistent policy. But what they will not talk about is the abject uncertainty they have created over so many months and the incompetent way in which they have come to the position they are in now. The previous speaker, the Leader of the National Party and the shadow minister on behalf of the coalition, just an hour or so earlier outlined very capably and in great detail the approach of the opposition to these four bills and our fundamental difference on three of those bills. In relation to those three, as I indicated, I wish to focus on LPG in particular.

When you look at the history of this issue, which they say they are interested in, you discover—

Mr Craig Thomson interjecting—

And I would urge the member opposite, who talks so often before he thinks, to listen and learn the history. You discover that those opposite, despite what they have said in the past, have at every step—for reasons which I am oblivious to—taken action to damage the LPG industry in Australia.

To illustrate that point, let me depart from these bills for just a second, which I know you will allow me to do, Mr Deputy Speaker. I look back to 2006–07. My friend the member for Gippsland will know this, being a fellow Victorian, because the LPG industry is very important in outer suburban and rural electorates in Victoria. In 2006 the Howard government introduced the LPG Autogas tank rebate—and I concede it would have had a more eloquent name that would have formed itself into a nice acronym. The Labor Party at the time did not say anything, but in the 2009 budget they took action to cut back that rebate. They did not promise before the 2007 election that they would cut the rebate back.

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