Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

We believe pricing carbon is good for this country's future for the same reasons that John Howard did when he committed to introducing a price on carbon—something you voted against despite that so-called election mandate. The reasons are these: to continue to be a first-rate economy you have to be a clean energy economy, and the way you move to a clean energy economy is to price carbon. Those on the other side would pretend to the Australian people that they have a plan to deal with climate change. What they have is a massive taxpayer funded, bureaucratically managed, govern­ment-picking-winners scheme that will not achieve the outcome it is supposed to but will impose a cost on Australian families.

In relation to the modelling, I would invite the senator to look at the totality of the modelling which I think he is referring to. He talked about a report. I assume he is talking about the modelling which we discussed yesterday. It shows that Queensland's gross state product continues to grow strongly under a carbon price, 3.5 per cent above the national average, that over 470,000 new jobs will be created and that real wages will continue to grow. The Queensland economy will continue to grow. What this shows us is that our economy can continue to grow, our jobs can continue to grow and our incomes can continue to grow with a carbon price. Those are the facts in the face of the unfair scaremongering campaign that those opposite are engaged in. It is really extraordinary when you see some senators in this place who used to advocate for a carbon price now jumping aboard the scare­mongering campaign. (Time expired)