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

I thank the shadow minister for his question as part of the opposition's new positive strategy of ideas and plans for the nation's future! In answer to the opposition's question: first and foremost, we have made arrangements for our nation to seize a clean energy future, to reduce carbon pollution and to make sure that we get the benefits of jobs and opportunity in the future. We have done what Prime Minister Howard intended to do before he lost the election in 2007: we have introduced a market based mechanism to price carbon, which will give our nation an emissions trading scheme—something that the Leader of the Opposition and every serving member who was here in 2007 was in favour of at the time.

Of course, what we have seen since is—as the minister would say—the most mendacious campaign in Australia's history. It is full of false representations and untruths that have been peddled to the Australian people and that have been shown time after time to be untrue. The Leader of the Opposition has not at any point indicated to the Australian people that those claims have been withdrawn. He has ceased to make them because he knows how untrue they are. The claims about job losses are wrong, the claims about astronomical increases in the cost of living are wrong, the claims about $100 roasts are wrong, the claims about Whyalla being wiped off the map are wrong and the claims that carbon pollution would just go up and up are wrong—have a look at the emissions reductions that we have seen of late. All of these claims are wrong. Today we have seen President Obama, in the state of the union address, talk about the importance in his nation of bipartisanship and a market based mechanism to deal with carbon pollution.

On the question of asylum seekers we faced months and months of negativity from the opposition, preventing this government from getting on with the job after a High Court decision that left this government—

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