Senator LUDWIG (10:15 AM) —I rise to ask a number of questions of the Democrats, and perhaps the government, about the excise, particularly how the process will be dealt with and adopted—that is, the independence of the proposed fund and how it will be set up. Perhaps they can shed some light on how the mechanism will be proceeded with. In other words, I want to ensure that it is an independent body and that it provides the benefits that have been set out. The only information we seem to have on it is in the Prime Minister's press statement. Going to that matter particularly, the debate would be assisted if Senator Cook were in the chamber to assist in the matter. Hopefully he is not too far away.

The matter of the beer excise is of course a difficult matter for the government—I can well understand. It is the matter on which the government had to do a policy backflip, take a policy initiative on the run, and provide what could only be described as a difficult response which has ongoing effects. But, in the end, it is a matter that they should have looked at more clearly when it was first introduced, when they were playing with the mechanisms that they were going to introduce in respect of the GST and the beer excise.