And it took a while to get the answer
From SKY:
HOST: You’ve said the Coalition will repeal any carbon tax if you are successful at the next election. Will you also repeal whatever compensation goes with it, including tax cuts?
HOCKEY: Well, it is ridiculous if you have a situation where you’re imposing a tax and you have to compensate for it. That’s not a tax cut. That’s not tax reform.
What the Government’s saying is ‘yes, we want to introduce a painful new tax, and we’re going to compensate some people for it.’
Now, I suspect they won’t be able to deliver the compensation they’ve been claiming. I do not believe the Government when it says it’s going to properly compensate people because the Government has now said it’s not putting the carbon tax or the compensation in the budget.
HOST: I’ll get to that in a moment, but clearly there will be compensation, whichever form it takes. Will you repeal that compensation?
HOCKEY: Well, you don’t need to have compensation if you haven’t got a tax.
HOST: They will have a tax, and they will have compensation, so if you’re going to repeal one, you’ll repeal the compensation?
HOCKEY: Of course.
HOST: Including tax cuts?
HOCKEY: Well, because they’re not tax cuts. There’s no tax cuts on the table, David.
HOST: But if they go for tax cuts to compensate for the carbon tax-
HOCKEY: -They can’t go for tax cuts to compensate because if they do the tax cuts, which means adjusting thresholds or adjusting rates, it means that everyone across the board will have a reduction in income tax.
Now, this mob are incapable-
HOST: -But if they do that, you’ll repeal it?
HOCKEY: I’m not going to speculate on what they’re doing. They haven’t even said they’re going to do it.
HOST: But you’ve already said that you’ll repeal the carbon tax without seeing the details of that – who it will apply to, what the carbon price will be. You’ve said on the speculation you will repeal that.
HOCKEY: We will repeal the carbon tax, and there will be no need for compensation so we will unwind the compensation, because you don’t need to have compensation if you have no carbon tax.
HOST: Alright, so they both go if you get elected.
HOCKEY: Of course.
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