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

To the member who asked the question, I went to the question of assistance that we are providing to pensioners. Tax cuts and family payments are No. 1, because I doubt that he has bothered to inform his constituents of that. And No. 2: of course we are doing that because we expect that there will be some costs passed through on items where carbon pricing has had an effect. The amount of those flow-through costs is less than a cent in a dollar—it is 0.7 per cent of CPI. The Leader of the Opposition has been out misrepresenting that to the Australian people and saying that it is astronomical. It is 0.7 per cent of CPI, and people will have assistance as they meet those costs. Indeed, around four million Australian households will come out better off.

I am familiar with the electorate that the member represents. In that electorate particularly I think he should look at the compensation statistics and the way in which people will be assisted. We will continue to work with the dairy industry and get them the facts. They will never get them from the opposition. When we get them the facts, that will help them understand the modest impacts of carbon pricing as opposed to the fear campaign to which they have been subjected.

Finally, I would say to the member who asked the question: has he ever inquired of the Leader of the Opposition how the so-called direct action policy—the subsidy of polluters policy—is going to affect his electorate? Has he ever inquired about how it is going to be funded? The cost is $1,300 per family. Who is going to pay that? Has he ever asked whether the penalty clause in that policy will be leveraged against dairy farmers? Has he ever asked the Leader of the Opposition that? I suggest that he ask some of those questions because—

Opposition members interjecting—

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