Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's a python, not a cobra. We have seen Whyalla survive. Whyalla is still there. We have seen the opposition leader previously describe the lifts in the cost of living as 'unimaginable', and yet the TD Securities inflation figure for July was 0.2 per cent. We have heard the Leader of the Opposition say that every Australian job would be less secure, yet unemployment remains low. Wages continue to grow. Australians in all walks of life continue to get on with their daily lives. What we have seen over the last year is the most irresponsible scare campaign in this nation's history.

I have been out to my electorate and talked to people. I used to do the piece-of-steak test. I knew that the average piece of steak would rise by half a cent under the carbon price. I would go out there and ask people, 'How much do you think it's going up?' Because of the scare campaign of those opposite, you got anywhere from 15c to $2 a piece. People have fertile imaginations these days. Of course members opposite have played upon those imaginations and turned them into an incense burner to their own political vanity. Unfortunately, this all has to stop. At some point, reality has to set in. And of course it has set in.

What this price is all about—and it is a price, and it is a market based mechanism—is a transformation in our economy, mainly to drive efficiency. That is what this price does: it mainly drives efficiency. Sure, some costs are passed on. That is why consumers—particularly consumers on fixed incomes—are compensated. But what this price really is designed to do is drive efficiency in business.

I have seen that in my own electorate, in a big bottling plant. Obviously it was energy intensive. They were fearful of what Europe might do in terms of trade barriers. They were fearful that wineries might ship their wine over there and bottle in the United Kingdom rather than bottle here. So they halved the amount of glass in the bottles. They invested in a very efficient manufacturing plant and reduced the amount of glass they used. Because they reduced the amount of glass they used, they reduced their energy intensity. Because they reduced that, they pump out less carbon. That is what market based systems do: they promote efficiency. Members opposite know this. But they just do not want to talk about it.

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