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

First, on the issue of why now, I make this point: the opposition will always say that, because they have said that before. The reality is that it will never be the right time according to Senator Abetz and those on that side of the chamber. It does not matter what is occurring in the global economy, those on the other side have a very clear position: they do not wish to deal with this economic reform. They do not wish to start to shift the Australian economy towards the clean energy economy of the future; they do not wish to take that responsibility. They do not wish to take responsibility for acting on climate change. They would rather turn their faces away from reform. They would rather run a scare campaign. They would rather simply throw bombs. That is the approach of the opposition. That is the reality.

We on this side of the chamber are very cognisant also of the advice that was provided to Prime Minister Howard and that has consistently been provided to governments by experts, including the Treasury. That advice is simply that the longer we delay the higher will be the costs. We know that, when you are making an economic transition, if you make that transition later rather than earlier you lock more investment in the old economy, which then has to be unwound, rather than direct investment to the new economy, to the clean energy jobs of the future. We know that the coalition will not be responsible on this; they would rather increase costs. They have, in addition to their $70 billion black hole, a policy which is all about slugging Australian taxpayers, Australian households, to fund a reduction in Australia's carbon pollution. It is a policy without economic weight, without any grounding, without any— (Time expired)