Mr CREAN —Mr Speaker, I direct my question to the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business. Minister, do you recall saying, in your secret plan in relation to Labor's tax credit idea, that `providing compensation through tax credits allows more targeted compensation than income tax cuts and increased family payments'? Do you also recall saying that there may be more that we could do in terms of lowering effective marginal tax rates further? Minister, have you discussed these ideas with the Treasurer and does he agree that this flaw in the tax package will need to be repaired?

Mr REITH (Workplace Relations and Small Business) —I have not discussed the matter with the Treasurer, but if you read the letter you will see that it was attempting to put together in a succinct way—

Mr Beazley interjecting—

Mr REITH —Good. You should read it a few times and maybe you would learn something from it. The letter said that this was an idea that had been floated around some time ago. In fact, the letter said that that particular measure had gone to the government's tax reform task force back in 1997 and it was decided not to proceed with it. So rather than it being your idea, we had considered it and discarded it. We did not proceed with it—end of story.