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

I again say that the coal industry, the coalminers, were provided under the government’s white paper with some three-quarters of a billion dollars worth of assistance. The senator asked in his earlier question about modelling. I would invite him to consider the Treasury modelling, the largest modelling exercise in the nation’s history, which talks about the fact, amongst other things, that the value of output in coalmining, gas extraction, metal products et cetera will increase by 2050 even with the introduction of the scheme—and I would emphasise that was assuming a less generous set of assistance to industry than the government in fact implemented. In other words, the modelling demonstrates that these sectors can continue to grow. However, this government, because it is responsible and it is serious about supporting jobs today as well as the jobs of tomorrow, provided more assistance than was set out in the green paper.