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

We have made it very clear that we will use the revenue from the carbon price—which will be paid by the 1,000 largest polluters—first of all to assist households and then to assist industry and to invest in important climate change programs. We have made that absolutely clear.

Professor Garnaut has made a series of recommendations. We will follow some maybe and we may not follow some. We are considering these in a methodical way, working through all the issues with the multi-party committee, consulting with business and consulting with the wider community. That is the perfectly rational way to go about making policy and it is the way in which the Australian people expect us to go about making policy. But those on that side of the House have become so negative and so apparently bitter now that there is no rational thought process going on at all on the opposition front bench. If you listen to their questions today, question after question is simply being wasted. It has been an abject performance and one which reflects very poorly on all of them.

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