Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to the government's decision to give the Alcoa aluminium smelter at Port Henry $42 million to help pay its carbon tax bill. Why are the 600 workers at Port Henry entitled to a $42 million payment for the carbon tax but not the 500 workers at Kurri Kurri in the Hunter Valley? Are the workers in that area not a priority because their electorate is not sufficiently marginal?

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

The Leader of the National Party has asked a question based on an entirely false premise. The assertion he is putting to this parliament is wrong. Let me repeat the words of the managing director of Alcoa. I would say to the Leader of the Opposition that if he wants to make these sorts of distorting claims then I hope he has the integrity to ring up the managing director of Alcoa and say that he is accusing the managing director of Alcoa of speaking untruths. The managing director of Alcoa has said, as I quoted in answer to my last question, that the current situation has not been brought about by the upcoming carbon price but as a result of the international price on aluminium and the high Australian dollar.

The fact that the opposition has now degenerated into chatting among themselves and smiling shows just how little regard they have for the jobs of these workers. For them this is all just one big political joke. They do not care at all. It is written all over their faces, all over their smiles and their chatter to each other. They do not care about these jobs. These jobs, for them, are just a convenient political plaything as they come in here with their negativity and cheap politics. The Leader of the National Party has asked an incorrect question; it is factually wrong. In insulting these workers and the company they work for it is, in my view, morally wrong as well.

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

My supplementary question is for the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister confirm that the government's own carbon tax modelling forecasts a 61 per cent reduction in aluminium production as a result of her tax?

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

The answer to the Leader of the Opposition's question is that he is wrong, as usual.