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

Of course, I am answering the Leader of the Opposition's questions on the respective positions on pricing carbon. So on this side of the parliament I, as Prime Minister, am saying to the Australian people climate change is real—I have always believed that—and that to tackle climate change and cut carbon pollution the best way of doing that is pricing carbon—I have always believed that. And let us do the contrast on consistency with the Leader of the Opposition. He said on 9 June this year: '... in the end no-one is really convinced the best way to go is a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme.' Now through those words what we have actually seen is a Leader of the Opposition who has become so negative, so addicted to negativity, that he is now, in fact, being negative about himself, because it is the Leader of the Opposition who has, at earlier points in time, advocated a price on carbon. Tony Abbott, Daily Telegraph blog, 19 December 2008: 'An emissions trading scheme probably is the best way to put a price on carbon.' Tony Abbott in 'A realist's approach to climate change', 27 July 2009: 'Still, a new tax would be the intelligent sceptic's way to deal with minimising emissions because it would be much easier than a property right to reduce or to abolish should the—

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