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

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. The member for Groom went on to say, ‘Lack of planning has led to an investment drought.’ What that means, and what the Leader of the Opposition ought to acknowledge, is that we are in a situation where electricity prices are rising, where there has been insufficient investment in the sector and, in part, that insufficient investment has occurred because of uncertainty about a carbon price. So for the small business person that the Leader of the Opposition refers to, there are basically two futures: one of rising electricity prices, with no action on carbon pollution, no investment certainty because there is no carbon price, and a continued lack of investment in electricity generation and distribution with all of the stresses and strains that implies for prices; or the alternative future, the future that the government would advocate for and which we announced when we announced the carbon pricing mechanism last week—a future where we fix a price for carbon, there is certainty for those who would invest that will enable investment in energy, in renewable energy, in electricity generation that will expand capacity that is important for small businesses, for big businesses and for households and, because we are a Labor government, there is fair and generous assistance to households. They are the two alternatives.

On being clear about the alternatives, I think the Leader of the Opposition should acknowledge that his alternative is one where he takes $20 billion of taxpayers’ money, uses it to buy international credits because it is the only way he can reach the bipartisan targets for carbon pollution reduction and then spends $10.5 billion on ineffective direct action measures, a total of $30 billion spent in all, so—

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