Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. If the Leader of the Opposition is genuinely interested in these matters, then I ask him to respond positively to my invitation to members of the opposition who accept that climate change is real and who accept that pricing carbon is necessary for us to achieve our emissions reduction objectives to join the climate change committee.

The government have seized the opportunities that we believe this new parliament presents to work in a methodical way when considering all of the options for pricing carbon. It is not going to be easy, but I believe you can achieve things when people work together in a spirit of good faith. I understand that the opposition is going to invite me to engage in a series of rule-in, rule-out games about what will be considered during this process and I am not going to do it. There is not a company board or an executive committee of a local tennis or cricket club in this country that takes options off the table before they go and sit down to work through issues. We are going to go through a proper process with the multiparty committee. Of course, the government will then make the final decisions about what the government’s position will be, but we will go through this process step by step in good faith. I have written to the Leader of the Opposition about it and I ask him to embrace this positive opportunity, rather than seek to be a wrecker on this question which is so important to Australians.

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