David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer ) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Page for her question. The ACCC has today released its report on the first 100 days since the carbon price came into effect, on 1 July. The report shows that during the first 100 days, around 2½ thousand complaints were received by the ACCC. To put this into some context, this amounts to just 6.5 per cent of the total number of consumer protection complaints received by the ACCC. The complaints in relation to carbon pricing have now slowed to around four complaints a day. This shows that the overwhelming majority of businesses out there are doing the right thing; they are acting responsibly and they are not making misleading claims in relation to the carbon price.

Of course, that is in spite of the fact that the Leader of the Opposition has been out there for two years encouraging them to jack up their prices and falsely blame those price increases on the carbon price. Those business that have not been doing the right thing—and I must stress it is a small proportion of businesses—have been the subject of very strong and robust enforcement action by the ACCC. I think that has been important in sending a very strong message to all businesses of the importance of not misleading their consumers.

Since day one of the carbon price having been announced, the Leader of the Opposition, in contrast to the majority of Australian businesses, has been making one misleading and reckless claim after another. We saw him come into this chamber yesterday brandishing an electricity bill of a pensioner—hiding behind the bill of a pensioner—claiming that a doubling of the electricity costs of that pensioner were as a result of the carbon price. He seemed to deliberately conceal the fact that, from one quarter to the next, that pensioner, that household, had doubled their electricity usage. It seems as though he is now making another misleading claim to the Australian people—that, under their policies and their plans if they ever get elected, you can double your electricity usage and somehow, from quarter to quarter, your bills are going to be cheaper. What nonsense. This is the sort of nonsense that we have heard.

We have heard so many misleading claims from the Leader of the Opposition. Let us look at what he has said. First he said it was going to be a cash cow. He said it was a dog of a tax. He said it was going to be a cobra strike and it would be a python squeeze. He even said it was going to be an octopus. There is a bit of a theme developing here. He has taken his reckless scare campaign not just to every fish shop and every fish market in the country; he even went to the RSPCA. We all thought that he was beginning to be the Dr No of Australian politics. It turns out he is actually Dr Dolittle. And when it comes to repealing the carbon price— (Time expired)

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