Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Facts are very inconvenient for those opposite. The assertion that somehow there is not carbon pricing occurring elsewhere in the global economy, that we do not have emissions trading schemes in Europe, that we do not have the development of those schemes in China or the development of those schemes in the United States is just simply wrong and it is deliberately misleading to make that point. But I do want to make a couple of points about why we need to put fundamental reform in place for our economy.

When we look at where our economy is today, when we look at the fact that we did avoid recession—almost alone, amongst advanced economies—we should take a bit of time to analyse why that was the case. Yes, it was the very prompt response of the Australian people and the Australian government to deal with circumstances in the past four years but also what has been important, as the trade minister was saying before, has been fundamental long-term reforms, over the past 30 years, put in place by both sides of politics. There is no doubt that the Hawke-Keating government did put in place a whole raft of long-term reforms, which have stood this government in very good stead and stood this country in very good stead—and that side of the House when they were in government. But many of these reforms were opposed tooth and nail by those sitting over there today. They opposed the introduction of national—

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