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

I thank the member for Groom for his question. Of course, the member for Groom is the person who, before the last election, verified that, whoever formed government after the election, electricity prices were going up. He was speaking frankly to the Australian people about underinvestment in infrastructure and the fact that investment in infrastructure needed to occur. He said that was going to flow through to consumers and it was nothing to do with a price on carbon. He told people the truth then; I hope he is prepared to continue to do that.

On the question of the statements by the CEO of TRUenergy, I and the government are very conscious of the need for certainty in short- and long-term carbon pricing to send the right signals for investment in long-lived assets—and, of course, electricity generation necessarily involves long-lived assets. That is why we are working on carbon pricing and will announce full details of the scheme in the middle of the year so people can see what is being proposed with certainty. What the CEO of TRUenergy stated yesterday—and it is very clear—was this:

The industry has actually been very supportive of an emissions trading regime and lots of us within the industry operate in other jurisdictions that have an emissions trading regime.

That is, the CEO of TRUenergy was out there, working as he does in a sector that makes long-lived investments, understanding the need for an emissions trading scheme—and, of course, we will get to a full cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme following a fixed-price period. He then specifically rejected the view that a so-called direct action policy would be sufficient to transform the energy sector—and that, I think, is a very important piece of information for the House.

Now, who else has been telling us about so-called direct action over the last seven days? Well, it is none other than the member for Wentworth, who went on national television and verified that, effectively, this is the scheme you have when you are really a climate change denier; it cannot work and it will cost Australians $18 billion. We know that, in 2020, the impact on Australian families will be $720 per year.

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