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

We will wait for the inevitable ‘Aha!’ moment in the supplementary question. Let me be very clear with the Leader of the Opposition about my view. My view is that Australia should not lead the world but we should not be left behind either. We have a high-emissions economy. We cannot afford to be stranded with that high-emissions economy while other nations change and the world changes. There are other nations that are changing; there are other parts of the world changing. Thirty-two other nations have got emissions trading schemes; 10 US states have got emissions trading schemes. The world is changing.

Because we are, by the standards of the developed world, the biggest per capita emitters of carbon pollution, we have got a lot of changing to do. What that means is that we cannot afford to be left behind the world, and to make the amount of change we need is a major transformation and a major amount of change. That means we need to get started, which is why I have determined we will price carbon from 1 July 2012.

To the Leader of the Opposition I say: of course the challenge of climate change is a global challenge; of course it involves more than Australia in meeting this global challenge; and of course we will continue to press in the councils of the world for the world to act on climate change.

But at every point we should act in Australia’s national interest. Australia’s national interest demands that we do not get left behind with a high-pollution economy and that we transform our economy in a measured and sensible way. Pricing carbon from 1 July 2012 will mean we can start that major journey of transformation in a measured and sensible way; whereas, if we leave our high carbon polluting economy unreformed and then the world moves, and then we are left behind, it will be a dramatic shock for the Australian economy to then transform.

My prism is Australia’s national interest. My prism is Australian jobs. My prism is making sure our economy is a clean energy economy of the future. And my confidence is we have seen major economic reforms in this country in the past. They have been opposed at the time, but, when we look at the track record of what those major reforms have achieved, they have given us the prosperous economy we have today. The nation is up to this, the government is up to this and we will get it done.

See this speech in context