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

In answering the member's question and explaining the cover­age changes that have been made in the scheme as compared with the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, what I increasingly sense is a sense of disappoint­ment from the opposition. They wanted to have their petrol price scare campaign. The Leader of the Opposition was already out claiming 6.5c a litre, and he was dead wrong. They wanted to have a campaign about how wide the scheme was covering and now they can see that scare campaign shrivelling before their eyes, because as usual they have been dead wrong. They wanted to have a cost of living scare campaign. They wanted to be out there scaring Australian families about the impacts of carbon pricing, and now of course it is clear nine out of 10 households will get tax cuts or payment increases, which should actually lead the opposition to say to itself: how irresponsible they have been over the last year trying to scare Australians, making things up, as we get on with pricing carbon in the most responsible way.

We will cut carbon pollution. We will get the big polluters to pay. We will protect Australian jobs. We will provide tax cuts and payment increases. We will get this job done in a Labor way, driven by our Labor values. Meanwhile, the Leader of the Opposition is hostage to sceptics. He is determined to rip assistance off Australian families. He wants to put an extra $720-a-year tax on them. He wants to go around scaring Australians about the prospects of their jobs. Well, we are a confident, creative nation. We have been up to the big challenges in the past. We will be up to this big challenge, and the Leader of the Opposition will be increasingly exposed as someone who went about generating fear with hollow and untruthful claims and as someone who is not ready to lead this nation—no ideas for the future, just relentless negativity and the saying of no, no, and no.

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