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

The reason we want international trading is that we believe that Australian companies should be able to reduce emissions at lowest cost. Isn't that a radical proposition? We actually want to ensure that business can reduce emissions at the lowest cost—something that the Liberal Party now opposes. What the Liberal Party wants is higher costs for the economy, higher costs for Australian business and, incidentally, higher costs for Australian workers.

As part of the question I was also asked about compensation. As the senator would know, we have already outlined a very substantial tax reform package as part of the clean energy package: a tripling of that tax-free threshold, increases in pensions and increases in the disability support pension—all of which would be ripped away by those opposite.