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

I thank the member for his question. Of course, we have been through these debates before. When we were reducing tariffs there were plenty of people who said, ‘Don’t do that until the rest of the world has done it,’ and fear was raised about the reduction of tariffs. What has been the outcome of that major economic reform? A more prosperous country that is more resilient to economic shocks, including the global financial crisis; more people in work; and a country that is making its way in the world. But on any day when we were involved in that major economic debate people said that we should not do those things; we should not reform our economy until the rest of the world had acted. To the great credit of the Liberal Party then it believed in economic reform. Unfortunately, the Liberal Party no longer believes in reform of anything. It no longer believes in putting the national interest in front of its political interest.

The answer to the honourable member’s question is that the rest of the world is moving. President Obama committed to 80 per cent of energy coming from clean energy sources by 2035. China is acting on climate change by closing small, inefficient, dirty power stations and replacing them with bigger, more economically efficient and environmentally friendly ones. China is making new commitments to climate change and to reducing greenhouse gases, including commitments to reducing its carbon emissions per unit of GDP. India is taxing coal from all sources in order to fund clean energy initiatives. India will in April move to an energy credits trading scheme.

These are the things that are happening around our world. Here we are in Australia with per capita the highest carbon polluting economy in the developed world. That means that the journey of transition that we need to make is a bigger journey. It is in our national interest.

See this speech in context