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

Here we once again have the opposition trying to induce confusion and continuing its campaign of misrepresentation against carbon pricing. We saw it in the last parliamentary session, we saw it across the winter recess and of course we are seeing it again in question time today. It is exactly the same type of misrepresentation we saw when the Leader of the Opposition was saying that coal would be out of business—he was wrong—and steel would be out of business—and he was wrong. He said that cost of living increases would be astronomical—and he was wrong. We have seen all of this play out day after day.

To the member's question, what I would say, of course, is that the scheme has been designed so that it is the generators of the most pollution, the biggest polluters, who pay. It has been designed to do that. If the member who asked the question somehow now has a perspective that the scheme should be more broadly based then that would truly be an eccentric move by the opposition. But, given we have heard different things on different occasions about all aspects of the scheme, I am not surprised. What the calculation about the amount of carbon pollution relates to is the amount of carbon pollution generated at a site. What happens is that, in terms of the carbon pollution, a price is paid, and businesses will adapt, they will innovate and they will reduce the amount of carbon pollution.

The member then seems to conclude that all of this somehow adds up to less economic growth. The Leader of the Opposition has apparently finally found the detailed documents about carbon pricing. I would refer the member who asked the question to those detailed documents because of what they show—that is, continued economic growth—

Mr Pyne interjecting—

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