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

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I was asked about my views on pricing carbon, and I am reaffirming to the Leader of the Opposition and to the House that I have always believed we needed to price carbon in order to cut carbon pollution and tackle climate change. Of course, I am reinforced in this belief by the widespread community support for it. I am reinforced in this belief by support from unusual sources including the member for Flinders who has supported pricing carbon by saying:

Perhaps the most important domestic policy was the decision of the Howard Government that Australia will implement a national carbon trading system.

Or the support I have received from the member for North Sydney, and I thank him for it. He said:

… inevitably we'll have a price on carbon … we'll have to.

Or the support I have received from the member for Aston who said: 'The government's role should be to create the market environment that will lead to the outcomes sought either through putting a price on CO2 or other mechanisms.' Or the member for Moore; I thank him for his support. He said: 'If we don't price carbon both sides of politics will be guilty of putting up stupid feel good programs that are not cost effective.' Or the member for Wentworth; I thank him for his support for pricing carbon. He said:

My views on climate change, the need for a carbon price, the fact that market-based mechanisms are the most efficient ways of cutting emissions, my views are the same today as they were when I was part of John Howard's Cabinet.

And those views were held by the Howard government. I have to say, I even thank the Leader of the Opposition for his periodic support for pricing carbon because, of course, the Leader of the Opposition has been known to go out and advocate a carbon tax from time to time. He most particularly did so on 29 July 2009 when he said:

If you want to put a price on carbon why not just do it with a simple tax?

He went on to extol the merits of a carbon tax. Indeed, the Leader of the Opposition has had so many positions on pricing carbon that it led the member for Wentworth, in desperation, to describe him as a political weathervane. He needed to go out that day and check the political winds in order to work out whether or not he believed climate change was real or whether we should price carbon. As opposed to the weathervane politics that we see through the Leader of the Opposition—

Mr Simpkins interjecting—

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