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

will need to innovate and change the way that they do business. It has happened before with pollution. It happened before with sulphur pollution, causing acid rain. It will happen again. Businesses will innovate. Yes, there will be price impacts—there is no doubt about that. I have been upfront about that. As a result of there being price impacts, and because we are a Labor government, we will provide fair and generous household assistance. I know the Leader of the Opposition struggles to understand what that would mean. He said, ‘Oh, it is just a big merry-go-round.’

The Leader of the Opposition needs to understand this: by providing fair and generous household assistance we will have people with dollars in their pocket, but when they go to the shops there will be price signals about goods that have more carbon pollution imbedded in them than goods with less carbon pollution. People with a dollar in their pocket from household assistance could still choose to buy the high pollution commodities, but of course people rationally respond to the price signals and they will buy the lower pollution commodities. Anybody who has ever seen the mechanics of a sale understands that. If you reduce a price comparatively, more people will buy it. That is what will happen as a result of the price signals from carbon pollution.

What is the alternative to this? What is the alternative to accepting the science? It is climate change denial and taking the risk that the overwhelming majority of scientists are wrong. We should not take that risk. What is the alternative to pricing carbon through a market mechanism? It is the inefficiency and fiscal recklessness that the member for Wentworth pointed to about the Leader of the Opposition’s plan. What is the alternative to providing household assistance? It is providing no assistance, and that is what the Leader of the Opposition wants to do. What is the alternative? It is ripping money out of the purses and wallets of Australians, which is what the Leader of the Opposition wants to do—$720 a year in order to pay for his inefficient direct action measures. The Leader of the Opposition might opportunistically change his attack on the government. He knows the figures—oh, no, actually he does not know the figures. We do not mind facing a new attack every day because we will patiently, calmly and methodically argue for this. It is in the national interest. We are going to act in the national interest. We will leave the Leader of the Opposition to stew in his politics. (Time expired)

Question put:

That the motion (Mr Abbott’s) be agreed to.

See this speech in context