Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Settlement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to this electricity bill from Dunlop Park Memorial Pool in the electorate of Moreton which shows that their power costs have increased by $1,200 as a direct result of the carbon tax. Given that this business has already cut hours from casual employees and expects to make further cuts, can the Prime Minister explain why she is letting small business bear the brunt of her carbon tax without a cent in compensation?

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

First, we will check the facts, because our experience this week is that the opposition's campaign of falsity includes questions that it comes into this parliament and asks. Facts have been wrong in questions all week—things misrepresented to add to the fear campaign. So we will check the facts because of that experience this week as part of the fear campaign. Second, I have answered this question on more than one occasion this week. The opposition may want to keep running its fear campaign despite the facts, but the facts are these. The carbon price is paid by a very limited number of businesses that generate a lot of carbon pollution.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Yes, the fools in the opposition think that laughing loudly changes a fact. But that is a fact and no amount of laughing or overacting changes that fact. Fact No. 2: we have always said that there would be some flow-through impact on electricity. When the opposition was wandering around the country falsely claiming that this would be astronomical, what we did was patiently go about our work and the regulators backed the government on the facts. That is what has happened. As a result of those increases in electricity—yes, it is true that some small businesses have seen increases in their electricity—we have put the consumers of the products of those businesses in a position where they have been assisted with tax cuts, family payment increases and pension increases. What that means, of course, is that on average the assistance provided to a family has been $10.10 a week. They are the facts.

The member who asked the question has been in this parliament in one way or another over a considerable period of time. She is the sort of person who stood happily in the Howard government as they said they would have an emissions trading scheme. That is, she is the sort of person who has gone out to her community and said she supports carbon pricing. Well, she is in good company: John Howard, Brendan Nelson, Malcolm Turnbull and this Leader of the Opposition. No amount of spin and falsity from the opposition changes the fact that they support carbon pricing or changes the fact that if they were ever in government again they would keep the price on carbon. I trust the member will tell her constituents those facts.

Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Settlement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to table the electricity bill so that it may assist the Prime Minister.

Leave not granted.