Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to this letter from the Chief Executive of Loy Yang Power which was sent to all employees and states: 'Under the carbon price scheme, Loy Yang Power will be required to purchase $450 million in carbon permits each year.' And further: 'The scheme is threatening our future viability as not all of these costs will be recovered via increased electricity prices and the government's proposed generator assistance package.' Is the Prime Minister aware that Loy Yang Power is now offering redundancy packages to its workers? Prime Minister, how many workers in the Latrobe Valley will lose their livelihoods because of the carbon tax that she promised would never be introduced?

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

In relation to the member's question, our perspective about the future of the Latrobe Valley—and I have been there to explain it to people myself; I had a long meeting with a large number of workers at the Hazelwood power station, for example—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

is that it has a very strong future and we will be working with the local community to achieve that. What I said when I was in the Latrobe Valley meeting with workers at the Hazelwood power station, local community members, representatives of the local council and the like was that our carbon pricing package includes a closure-for-tender process. We as a government will be calling a tender where those generators that are the dirtiest generators in the country—that is, they generate the most carbon pollution—can come forward with a proposal which we will assess on value-for-money criteria.

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

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order on direct relevance. How many Latrobe Valley workers will lose their jobs? That is the question the Prime Minister was asked and that is the question—

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

The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. There were other portions of the question—

Mr Chester interjecting—

Order! The member for Gippsland has asked the question.

Mr Abbott interjecting—

Order! The Leader of the Opposition!

A government member: You're not making a point of order; you're just debating!

The parliamentary secretary is warned! The ministers that complain—especially those who have had leadership status—actually know that from time to time leaders are given a bit of rope. I have indicated that that bit of rope has not much left to it today. The Leader of the House is standing patiently. He now has the call.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on a point of order, which is that the standing orders provide for one supplementary question only each day. What we see is a supplementary question in the guise of a point of order from the Leader of the Opposition, and he is consistent in doing it each and every day.

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

A portion—whatever the number of words was—of the original question was used to support a point of order about direct relevance. My response to that had been that there were many other portions to the question. The Prime Minister is responding.

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

What I was explaining to the member and to the House—it was exactly the same thing I explained to the workers in the Latrobe Valley when I spoke to them personally—was that we would go through this contract for closure process, it would take a number of years, and obviously we would work with any regions affected with structural adjustment because we want every region in the country to have a bright future.

Opposition member interjecting—

The member who is now interjecting may want to direct his attention to our Clean Energy Future package, our carbon pricing package, and he will see there allocated $200 million for structural adjustment purposes.

The point of going through this, and my visit to the Latrobe Valley, is to verify that no matter where I am—whether I am in this parliament, in front of workers from a power station or talking to people who are very passionate about climate change and reducing carbon pollution—I say the same thing. And I think that that is appropriate. What I do not think is appropriate—and it bears directly on the member's question about jobs—is for the opposition to say different things to different audiences. So we have the shadow minister for finance, who says that the policy of the opposition is the closure of the Hazelwood power station. And then the Leader of the Opposition, when he was out there trying to be a friend of the workers—when he was in that guise, which is completely contrary to his 'friend of business' guise, completely contrary to his 'friend of farmers' guise and completely contrary to his 'friend of those passionate about climate change' guise—then said:

There will be no act of policy from the next Coalition government or from any Coalition government that I'm associated with that artificially foreshortens the life of these power stations.

The only way that these statements make sense is if the shadow minister is envisaging a situation where the Leader of the Opposition is not associated with a future coalition government. I will allow them to explain that.