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

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I was asked about electricity price impacts and I was just explaining that, exactly in the same way that the whole scheme worked when the Howard cabinet sat around the cabinet table, prices do flow through. There are some price impacts for consumers, including users of electricity; that is right. It was true when the Leader of the Opposition sat around the Howard cabinet table and agreed with it; it is right now. In respect of those price impacts, of course we will provide assistance to nine out of 10 Australian households. The objective of the exercise is that it makes dirty energy more expensive and cleaner energy cheaper; that is, it helps our transition to a cleaner energy economy. They were the economics when John Howard was Prime Minister and the opposition frontbench agreed with emissions trading. They are the economics today.

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