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

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. My point in going to this report is that it verifies that climate change is real. It also verifies that to tackle climate change you need to cut carbon pollution and that, so-called, direct action measures are not enough. If you are going to cut carbon pollution the most efficient way to do that is to put a price on carbon. The shadow minister who asked the question actually knows that. Of course, putting a price on carbon does drive a change in our economy. It is meant to drive a change in our economy, as we put a price on carbon businesses that are big polluters then innovate and change to reduce carbon pollution. Of course we want to see carbon pollution reduced and that is what pricing carbon is all about.

We will work with Australian industry and business to protect Australian jobs, which is what the roundtables that the minister for climate change has been running are about, by working directly with Australian industry. In terms of job prospects for the future, what the shadow minister would know if he was being forthright with the parliament is that we cannot afford, in jobs and prosperity of Australians, to have our economy fall behind the standards of the world. There is a reason that we have to transition our economy. If we do not transition our economy we will miss out on the clean energy jobs of the future.

I say to the shadow minister, given his membership of the Liberal Party, that he is probably more likely to look to David Cameron on these questions than he is to any member of the Labor Party, and I would suggest to him that he does. Prime Minister Cameron, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom—who, if he were in this country, would be the holder of a Liberal Party ticket—is driving deep cuts in carbon pollution in his economy because of his view that it is positive for the jobs of the future and positive for employment growth in the United Kingdom.

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