Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you. We recognise that a carbon price is the cheapest and fairest way to cut pollution and drive investment in a clean energy future. The detailed features of the carbon price mechanisms, including the starting price, the length of the fixed price period and the assistance arrangement for households and industry, are yet to be decided, and therefore their impact cannot be determined at this particular time.

There are people out there providing reasonable alternatives and proposals. One I will turn to is Professor Garnaut. He supports the framework announced by the government to drive investment in a clean energy future. Today I was fortunate enough to hear from the UK ambassador on this subject. Over in the UK, they are doing reasonable things on carbon pricing. They are doing that in concert with the economy. They are developing new and exciting initiatives and emissions trading scheme programs. That is another prime example of what is happening in other countries, including the EU. The opposition claims that this is not happening anywhere else in the world and that we are leading the way. We are not. We are here, in train, working with the rest of the world to produce initiatives that will save our climate. When it comes to climate change, the Labor government is at the forefront and we will make sure working families are protected.