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

I thank the member for Sturt for proving my point that people know that there are other sources of electricity price increases apart from carbon pricing. I thank the member for Sturt for proving that point for me. He must have got the memo from the Leader of the Opposition that they have suddenly repositioned though they started this parliamentary fortnight saying such increases did not exist. Now they have been forced to acknowledge them because their state colleagues were talking about them and all of the experts were talking about them.

For the cost-of-living pressures in the member's electorate including from electricity prices, when it comes to carbon we always said that households would see, on average, an increase of $3.30 per week and that is why, on average, we provided assistance of $10.10. When it comes to assisting the people in her electorate with cost-of-living pressures, we have increased their support for childcare because what was left to us by the former Howard government and the Leader of the Opposition was not good enough for Australian families. We put in place the Schoolkids Bonus to help with the costs of getting the kids to school. We have delivered tax cuts including now making sure you can earn $18,200 without paying a cent of tax. We have delivered a historic pension increase because we understand that older Australians can do it very tough. We will continue to work with Australians on their cost-of-living pressures. What we will see from opposition is more fear and more— (Time expired)

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