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

I was asked about consumer behaviour and electricity pricing and I am directly dealing with things that can influence consumer behaviour and electricity pricing. I have just talked about questions of information provision to consumers which I believe can make a difference and now I am going on, having been asked about carbon pricing and electricity, to directly explain the impact of carbon pricing on electricity. I was explaining, before I was interrupted by the point of order, that we have always been very clear that the way carbon pricing was going to work was the big polluters would pay the price, so around 500 polluters paying the price, and that there would be flow-through impacts on prices paid by families, including electricity, and that, to assist those families, we would provide tax cuts and increases in family payments and pensions.

So I can say to the member, who is professing concern about the impact of electricity prices, that nine out of 10 Australian households will get compen­sation, will get assistance through tax cuts or increases in payments. Now that is a pretty stark contrast to Australian families having seen electricity prices go up with no assistance directed to help them with those prices and it is a pretty stark contrast too to the opposition's plan to take away all of the assistance we intend to provide and to put on top a new tax of $720 per year.

See this speech in context