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

There are times when this parliament is called upon to consider what it takes to lead the nation—what national leadership means. There are times in the life of this nation when you have to make a decision on whether you stand for hope and change or whether you stand for fear. There are times in the life of this nation where you have to decide if you stand for the national interest or your political interest. On each of those decisions the Leader of the Opposition is decided. He stands for fear. He stands for his political interest. He does not stand for the national interest.

In the Leader of the Opposition’s position there are three important things to recognise: there is no principle in it; there are no facts to support it; there is no future in it. On the question of there being no principle the Leader of the Opposition has had five different positions on pricing carbon. There is no principle in anything he says to the Australian people or to this parliament. He has had five different positions on pricing carbon. Even the former Leader of the Opposition said that the current Leader of the Opposition has had all of these different positions and that he is a weathervane in politics.

First the Leader of the Opposition said that he respected the mandate of the government to introduce it. Then he said that the coalition should not be browner than Howard. Then he said that if amendments were accepted the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme should go through. Then he said that you cannot have a climate change policy without supporting this ETS at this time. And then he backflipped, described climate change science as absolute crap and decided his political interests lay in a fear campaign.

In the Leader of the Opposition’s position there is no principle. No Australian could actually know what this man believes about climate change. I suspect the worst thing of all: the absolute truth about it is that he has no beliefs. He is so hollow and so devoid of understanding what is in this nation’s interests that he has no beliefs. So he waits for a focus group, he waits for polling and he waits to see what the newspapers are running and then he decides what he believes that day. There is no principle in this and there are no facts in it at all. The Leader of the Opposition is on the record as supporting a carbon tax but now he is out there running a fear campaign.

There are so few facts in their argument that every day a Liberal Party spokesperson uses a different figure. They have no idea what the content of their fear campaign should be, so hollow are they. So the shadow minister for the environment in January was wandering around saying, ‘Families will pay $1,100 a year.’ Then in February he was saying that it will be $300. The shadow finance minister was out saying it will be $1,000 and the New South Wales Leader of the Opposition was saying that it will be $500.

What this should be reinforcing in people is that, day by day, they just go out there and make things up to try to create fear in the community. No facts, no principle, just a perspective about creating fear. Indeed, one of the things they try to do is create the impression that the tax burden on Australians is greater now than it has been in the past. That is 100 per cent untrue. Australia is less taxed now than it was when the Leader of the Opposition sat on the ministerial benches. If you want to pick the side of politics that has delivered lower taxation in this parliament, it is this side of politics with me as Prime Minister.

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