Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

and which is widely accepted, particularly in Britain, even by conservative politicians, as being the roadmap for the future. What Lord Stern said is that tackling climate change is the only pro-growth strategy for the future—that is, if we do not act on climate change, the damage to our environment and therefore the damage to our economy will be great, and if we wish our economies to grow then we must put a price on carbon. In Australia we are the highest per capita polluters in the world. That makes it even more imperative that we deal with the price on carbon.

Of course, all of these points were made last week by Professor Garnaut—most particularly, the importance of a price on carbon to drive the investment in the technology, particularly in renewable energy, which will create the jobs of the future. It was only 18 months ago when those on that side of the House all favoured an emissions trading system.

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