Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The honourable member asked me a question about a company which is in the emissions intensive, trade exposed sector and about the consequences of the implementation of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme for companies in that sector and unemployment. That is the response that I am providing to him. I also draw the honourable member’s attention to the government’s core rationale again: that the costs of not acting now are far greater than would otherwise be the case.

I would draw the honourable member’s attention to this question and to a point which he himself made last year on the matter of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme or more broadly on emissions trading. This is on the question of when you should take action and when you should not. When he was asked by Laurie Oakes, in July of last year, about the Shergold report, he said—and he quotes, therefore, the position of the opposition at the time:

It is our view that the costs that are clearly there for taking action now are probably more than offset by the potential risks of not taking action.

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