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

I am pleased to take a question on carbon pricing on the day after the House of Representatives has supported the government's Clean Energy Future package, a great achievement for this Prime Minister and this government in a minority government. Against the opposition of those opposite—against the scare campaign of those opposite—the Labor Party and the crossbenchers have delivered a reform in the finest traditions of the Labor Party, which is about the future prosperity and wellbeing of the Australian people.

I am asked about the position of ACOSS. I would remind those opposite that the government has worked very closely with stakeholders, including the Australian Council of Social Service, who have welcomed, for example, the government's priority for low-income earners in the assistance package under the clean energy package—a package which increases the pension, increases family tax benefits and increases the tax-free threshold, thereby giving Australians earning up to $80,000 a tax cut, all of which you will remove. You have pledged in blood, so I hear, to remove it, so you should go and tell the pensioners of Australia that you will be ensuring they have lower pensions; you should tell the families of Australia that you will be ensuring that they have lower family tax benefits; and you should tell all Australians earning under $80,000 a year that you want them to pay more tax whilst you ensure that mining companies pay less. That is fairness and equity according to Tony Abbott: 'Let's slug the pensioners, slug the families and slug low-income earners, but let's let miners off the hook.' So do not come in here—through you, Mr President— (Time expired)