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

I certainly welcome the question, but I am sure it is not welcomed by the member for Wentworth. The fact is we have seen the opposition come in here week in and week out making all sorts of inaccurate claims about the impact of a carbon price, whether it is on electricity bills or anything else. We know that electricity prices in this country have increased by about 50 per cent in the past four years without a carbon price. Depending on where you are, we know that has substantially come from decisions taken by state governments, particularly their overinvestment in poles and wires. Of course, we never hear about that. In my home state of Queensland, dividends taken out of the system by the Queensland government are responsible for something like $400 in every bill for every household.

We know the opposition are running out of steam when it comes to their scare campaign about carbon pricing. We have not been getting quite the same volume of questions that we were getting before. The sky has not fallen in. Central Queensland has not been wiped off the face of the map.

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