Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Today I visited Paragon Printers Australasia, an environmentally sensitive, medium-sized business in Fyshwick whose electricity bill will rise by almost $50,000 a year under a $26-a-tonne carbon price. I ask the Prime Minister: how will she compensate this business so that printing jobs do not migrate to countries like China and India that do not have a carbon tax?

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

To the Leader of the Opposition I say this: no matter how ferocious the scare campaign, we will stay the course and we will get this done because it is the right thing to do by the country. Of course, the Leader of the Opposition has only one speed as a politician and that is ‘wreck’. Here he is in this parliament making figures up. What is remarkable to me is that some days the Leader of the Opposition comes into this place and criticises the government for not giving enough detail about carbon pricing and then on other days he comes into this parliament and makes figures up as though he can use those figures with any authority. You cannot have it both ways.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Pyne interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Sturt is warned.

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

As the Leader of the Opposition well knows, this is a government committed to pricing carbon. That means we will make the biggest polluters pay and we will use the revenue that is paid by the big polluters to assist households, to assist businesses to make the transition and to tackle climate change programs.

I understand that as the Leader of the Opposition goes around the country he is making people afraid. I am sure he went to that small business today for the sole purpose of making people afraid. But to the Leader of the Opposition I say this: we are a Labor government and we will deliver this change fairly. In the great tradition of reforming Labor governments we will get this done and we will get it done with fairness. I say to the Leader of the Opposition as well: I hope he took the opportunity during his travels to this small business today to say to every person that he met along the way that, if he is elected and we have provided tax cuts, he will take those tax cuts away; that, if he is elected and we have increased pensions, he will take those increases away; that, if we provide assistance through direct assistance to households and he is elected, he will take that assistance away.

I think the Leader of the Opposition should be very clear with Australian families, after the announcement made by his shadow Treasurer yesterday: what he stands for is ripping money out of the purses and wallets of Australians which the government wants to provide. The government is committed to making the biggest polluters in this country pay and using that money to assist households, to assist businesses and to tackle climate change. The proposition is to tax polluters and help households. The Leader of the Opposition’s proposition is to tax households and help polluters. That is what he stands for—taking money off decent hardworking Australians and giving it by way of subsidies to the biggest polluting businesses in this country. We will get this job done because it is right for the country, no matter how ferocious the Leader of the Opposition’s scare campaign.