David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

This is part of the pattern of what occurs on the big policy debates in this country. This is a big reform—a reform that will drive investment in clean energy technology. People will look back one day in the future and they will say, 'We appreciate the fact that the Gillard government took these steps to set our country on the path towards a clean energy future,' in the same way as we look back and we talk about how great the benefits of Medicare are—even though back in 1987 John Howard said:

… the Government should have taken a knife to the expensive, failed Medicare system. Medicare has added between $3 billion and $4 billion to the Federal Budget. Medicare is one of the great failures of the Hawke Government.

We will look back on the decision to price carbon in the same way as we look back on the Hawke and Keating decisions in relation to superannuation. But we recall that in 1995 the now Leader of the Opposition said:

Compulsory superannuation is one of the biggest con jobs ever foisted by government on the Australian people.

Those opposite will always say no, no, no. They will never say yes when it comes to taking the hard decisions to implement the big reforms—but they are the reforms that make the big difference to Australians all around this country. (Time expired)

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