Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr President. As I was saying, this government is proceeding, as we have been clear about, in a methodical and careful manner when it comes to designing the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. We are consulting extensively with the community and business on the green paper propositions. We put out a comprehensive green paper in July, which sketched out in great detail the proposed design of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. And we have been clear that the Treasury is undertaking one of the largest modelling exercises in Australia’s history, designed to provide a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of introducing a carbon price. The implications of this modelling will be taken into account when setting the emissions reductions trajectory and scheme caps. Of course those opposite do not understand taking this sort of approach. They do not want to understand it because, fundamentally, they are still not up to the task of tackling climate change. They are still at the point they were before the last election, where famously one of the senior government sources was quoted as saying, ‘We had to pretend we cared when it came to the issue of climate change.’ Until you take a responsible approach to this significant economic challenge—