Senator MARGETTS(1.33 p.m.) —I am not sure to whom I should direct my question. As I have mentioned before, often the principal argument as to why diesel fuel rebate is not a subsidy is that the roads that are used by vehicles for which the diesel fuel rebate is claimed often are roads that are created by the companies. This is the question in the case of prospecting: when these vehicles use roads, what kinds of roads do they use? I put it that, as they are prospecting, they would be using existing roads—perhaps existing roads produced by councils or governments, and they potentially may ask permission to use existing mining roads. I am not sure how that works.

That is an interesting issue. It has been said again and again that the diesel fuel rebate is not a subsidy and that the reason it is not a subsidy is that the vehicles did not use, or do damage to, the existing roads paid for by taxpayers or ratepayers. This is the salient question—I use their own logic; I did not go with it in the first place, but I will use that same logic now—when prospecting vehicles use roads, what kinds of roads do they use?