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

To the member who asked the question—we can see they have all got the same lines to chant today, which will probably be quite different from what they say tomorrow—what I would say is, first and foremost, my very clear recollection is that the so-called modelling you refer to, which I believe you probably saw in newspaper reports, was actually modelling on an earlier carbon pricing package. The so-called modelling was done not on the basis of the package that we announced and certainly not on the basis of the industry assistance measures that are in the carbon pricing package that we announced.

I would say to the member I think he has got a real responsibility to make sure that he tells people in his community the truth about the impact of carbon pricing, because I know that there have been attempts to mislead them. The member comes from a great coalmining district and there have been very direct attempts to mislead people who work in coalmining. The Leader of the Opposition was there one day at a Peabody mine saying to anybody who would listen that the coalmining industry had no future and it was going to be shut down. He was tremendously embarrassed when, the very next day, the very company whose jacket he had had on announced a major takeover, the biggest ever Australian takeover bid for an Australian company, because they saw such a long-term profitable future in mining coal.

So there have been all of these false claims made by members of the opposition and, yes, of course I expect that Liberal Party premiers will be following in their footsteps, in the lead-up to the Council of Australian Governments meeting, and trying to help their friends on that side of the House. But the member who asked the question should not confuse that with the truth. He should not confuse the Liberal Party's scare campaign with the truth, because we know it is not the truth.

With a price on carbon, our economy will continue to grow. With a price on carbon, there will be 1.6 million new jobs by 2020. With a price on carbon, coalmining will continue to grow. With a price on carbon—

Mr Abbott interjecting—

He is still making misrepresentations about coalmining.

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