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

I thank the member for Corangamite for his question. Of course, as the House has heard today and as the Prime Minister made clear yesterday, petrol will be exempt from the government's carbon price. What that means is that families, trades­people and small businesses with light commercial vehicles will not face a petrol price rise as a result of the introduction of a carbon price. That is a very important commitment that runs completely contrary to the scare campaign that the Leader of the Opposition has been running for month after month after month.

The Leader of the Opposition has had a number of things to say in the scare campaign. He said on one occasion that the impact on the cost of living would be unimaginable. He has repeatedly said that the carbon price will put 6½c a litre on the price of petrol just for starters. For week after week after week, the Leader of the Oppos­ition has gone out and completely misrep­resented this position to the Australian community. It is time to own up to it and time to apologise. He has claimed more than 20 times that the cost of petrol will go up. He is wrong today, he was wrong then and he should apologise to the community for his deliberate misrepresentation.

A scare campaign is always fuelled by misrepresentation and misinformation and it can never ever stand up to the facts. That is why, as the government finalises more details of our plans to put a price on carbon pollution, the Leader of the Opposition will get more and more hysterical. Chicken Little is going to get more and more shrill as all of his misrepresentation is revealed for what it is—a scare campaign.

On this front, last Friday there was quite an extraordinary outburst at economists. It was essentially: what would leading econo­mists in Australia know about economics compared to the Leader of the Opposition? That was an extraordinary attack on economists in this country for indicating what is widely held and understood—that is, a market mechanism for pricing carbon is the most efficient way of reducing pollution across our economy. He does not like economists, does not like scientists and takes his scientific advice from the One Nation website. This is a completely disreputable campaign that has been run by the Leader of the Opposition.

In the face of all this, the challenge that climate change represents for our country, the Leader of the Opposition is content to see pollution rise and continue to add to the problem that we have. He rejects market mechanisms as efficient ways to reduce pollution across our economy. He will slug the budget instead with the subsidies-for-polluters policy. It will cost $30 billion—

Dr Jensen interjecting—

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