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

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to this electricity bill from Mrs Hetty Verolme, a pensioner from Perth, who says that she nearly had a heart attack when her latest bill increased from $736 to $1,564. With the carbon tax directly accounting for about 70 per cent of recent rises in WA, what advice does the Prime Minister have for Hetty, who states, 'If this is what the carbon tax is doing, I am concerned for my next account?'

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

I say to the Leader of the Opposition: here we are, back to the same old siren song of negativity and distorting the facts. He says he is concerned about this pensioner in Western Australia. I do understand that pensioners around the country actually struggle to make ends meet. We in this government understand that, which is why we were responsible for an historic increase in the pension, something delivered by this government and never delivered by those opposite when they had the opportunity. We delivered an historic pension increase. Then, when we put in place carbon pricing, because we were concerned about the circumstances of those on fixed incomes we ensured that we not only gave them the amount of money that would be necessary to deal with the average flow-through price impact, we gave them extra money because we wanted them, knowing that their budgets are tight, to benefit from this package.

The Leader of the Opposition well knows that the big drivers of electricity price increases in Western Australia are local factors and decisions of the Western Australian government.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

As much as the opposition might interject and yell, they cannot get away from the fact that there have been 62 per cent increases in Western Australia over the last 40 years, and that is not about carbon pricing; that is about the decisions of the Western Australian government. Premier Barnett has, in fact, dealt with this matter publicly and has apologised to the people of Western Australia for the huge increases that his government is responsible for.

We took a different approach to Premier Barnett. We knew that there would be an increase in electricity prices of 10 per cent. That was modelled accurately by Treasury. We ensured that those who needed support the most were assisted, including the pensioner who the Leader of the Opposition refers to. So if he has a genuine concern I suggest he does the following. I suggest that he speaks to Premier Barnett about assisting people in his state on fixed incomes with the increases that Premier Barnett has been responsible for. I also suggest that he get on board with the government's approach and the government's plan to deal at the next COAG meeting with these kinds of increases in electricity prices, rather than trying to confuse and mislead about the true drivers of electricity prices.

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

Madam Speaker, I ask a supplementary question to the Prime Minister. With an $800 increase in just one bill, of which 70 per cent is due to the carbon tax, how can the Prime Minister possibly claim that Hetty's compensation is in any way adequate?

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

Madam Speaker, I ask the Leader of the Opposition to table the bill that he is referring to.

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

I am happy to table it; it shows an $800 increase.

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

I say to the Leader of the Opposition that we will take a look at the document that has been provided, because the routine performance of the opposition in this place has been to mislead about the content of bills that they have referred to in question time. We have seen that done before by members opposite, and then when we have had the opportunity to look at the bills and speak to the businesses involved we have seen the nature of the misleading.

But the Leader of the Opposition knows—and he should not mislead about this—that the modelled impact on electricity prices is 10 per cent. The Leader of the Opposition knows that as regulators around the country have made decisions about electricity pricing that has been bang-on with the modelling and in some states less than the modelling. That means that the assistance package was properly structured. That assistance package was designed to give people with fixed incomes, like pensioners, more assistance than they needed on average to deal with the flow-through impact of carbon pricing. The Leader of the Opposition ought not to be in here trying to add to his scare campaign which has already been viewed as ridiculous by Australians. Let us remember that Whyalla is on the map today, we are still mining coal today, Australians are still in work today, lamb roasts do not cost $100 today—this misleading campaign has been exposed as the sham it always was. (Time expired)