Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. The government has committed that more than 50 per cent of the carbon price revenue will be used to assist households, that millions of households will be better off under the carbon price and that the assistance will be permanent. As the Prime Minister has indicated, the government is exploring a number of options for delivering that assistance, including through tax cuts. In addition, I can inform the House that all 3.4 million maximum-rate and part-rate pensioners will receive assistance. Under the government's plan, pensioners will receive assistance over and above normal indexation increases from the outset of the carbon price scheme. Therefore, right from the start of the carbon price scheme, literally millions of pensioners will see a real increase in their pension.

The greatest threat to that increase is the coalition, which has made crystal clear that, upon the introduction of a carbon price, the coalition will remove the assistance to households and remove the increase in pensions. The coalition's policy is to remove the assistance and, in doing so, leave millions of Australians worse off. Whether it is a pension rise or whether it is a tax cut, the Leader of the Opposition has made it absolutely clear that he will claw it back. Unsurprisingly, we see in the papers today that some on the coalition side of politics are horrified that the Leader of the Opposition wants to take money away from households, wants to take money away from pensioners.

What is worse, it is going to be, from the coalition, a triple hit on families: first, the coalition is going to hit them to fund its paid parental leave scheme; second, the coalition is going to increase taxes on average households by $720 to pay for the 'subsidies for polluters' scheme; and, third, the coalition is going to claw back the assistance the government will have provided to pensioners and households. It is Mr Abbott's great big new pension clawback that we are confronting here. The difference between the government and the coalition could not be more clear: the government will provide assistance to pensioners and householders, and the coalition will take it all away.

Honourable members interjecting—

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