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

I welcome any debate on the cost of our respective approaches to climate change, because that put forward yesterday by those opposite does less, costs more and is totally unfunded. The question put by the Leader of the Opposition goes again to the electricity price. I say to the Leader of the Opposition that the Treasury advice to the government is that prices will rise by seven per cent in 2011-12 and 12 per cent in 2012-13. I would further tell the Leader of the Opposition that the total average increase in electricity, based on the advice from the Treasury, will be $1.70 per week or $88 per year in 2011-12. That is part 1. Part 2 is this: omitted from his presentation just now is the fact that the government has something called a compensation scheme for working families.

The reason the government charges polluters is to use the money from the big polluters to provide financial support to working families so that they can deal with the 1.1 per cent increase in the cost of living and provide them with the resources to then fund the acquisition of energy efficiency measures for their home. That is why we have done it that way. What is the contrast? Those opposite, when it comes to compensating working families, offer not one dollar. What they have done—

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