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

I thank the member for Greenway for her question and for her strong representation of her local community in this place. As a strong representative of her local community who believes in coming into this place and acting in the national interest, she knows that it is in the national interest to tackle climate change and that it is in the national interest to price carbon and to create the right mix of incentives and rewards to enable the development of clean energy solutions.

At the moment you can put carbon pollution into the atmosphere for nothing. By pricing carbon, we will send a signal to the thousand biggest polluters in this country that there is a cost when they put carbon pollution into the atmosphere. As a result they will innovate and they will change. Australian businesses are very adaptable. They have adapted to economic reform in the past and they will do so again in the future. With the money raised from pricing carbon, you can assist Australian households, which we will do—and we will do so fairly because we are a Labor government—you can assist Australian industries make the transition and you can fund programs to tackle climate change.

In answer to the question from the member for Greenway, which asked me about the national interest, let me make some things very clear to the House. It is no wonder that shadow cabinet met twice to try to stop the shadow Treasurer belling the cat and confirming to the Australian people that, if we compensate and assist households through tax cuts, the opposition will take them away; if we assist households through direct increases in pensions, the Leader of the Opposition will take those increases away; and if we assist through direct payments, the Leader of the Opposition will take those away. We will assist Australian households and the Leader of the Opposition is committed to taking that assistance away.

But it gets worse than that—worse than taking money out of the purses and wallets of Australians. The Leader of the Opposition is committed to a failed plan which would see carbon pollution in our economy rise by 17 per cent by 2020—rising carbon emissions—or the Leader of the Opposition would rip $720 off Australians to pay for his $30 billion worth of failed plans. So more assistance but more tax to be paid by Australian families—decent people who understand that this is a big challenge which, in our national interest, we need to face up to.

Decent people work their way through the facts and they think about these things very deeply. The Leader of the Opposition has taken a different course. That stands in stark contrast to the things that have been done by Liberal leaders in the past. I would refer the House to the Shergold report, the report of the task group on emissions trading, which made it clear to Prime Minister Howard—which is why he adopted the scheme—that it is the most efficient way of pricing carbon. Unfortunately, the present Leader of the Opposition is not a fit successor to Liberal leaders past. He has repudiated the power of the markets. He has repudiated the national interest. He would prefer to act in his political interests with his fear campaigns than act decently in the interests of Australians.

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