Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to thank the member for Banks for his question, because the carbon price has been operating now for nearly nine months. Despite all of the absurd, ridiculous and mendacious predictions from those opposite, the fact is that the economy is growing, jobs are growing and emissions are falling. In the first six months of the carbon price, emissions in the national electricity market in fact fell by 8.6 per cent. As we have heard already in question time, 71,000 jobs were created in the last month and 920,000 jobs have been created since Labor was elected to government.

Beyond that, the government uses the carbon price revenue and has done so to make significant tax cuts for low-and middle-income earners. We have done that by trebling the tax-free threshold from $6,000 to $18,200. The fact is this: that reform has freed up one million people from having to lodge a tax return and is providing tax cuts to over seven million people. In fact, 6.3 million people have received a tax cut of at least $300 a year.

But not everyone supports those tax cuts, of course. Last week, I was on a radio panel discussion with the shadow Treasurer. I asked him during that interview, 'Are you going to reduce the tax-free threshold?' He replied, 'Well, we've said that.' So let's get it absolutely clear: the Liberal Party will be increasing taxes on low- and middle-income earners; they will be reducing the tax-free threshold—

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