Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) Share this | Hansard source

This is an excellent supplementary question by the member for Blair, because this experience is being replicated in many other parts of industry. With the application of the carbon price and the disposition of carbon price revenue towards innovative techniques, the capturing of emissions, reductions of emissions intensity in manufacturing businesses, reductions in electricity consumption and improvements in productivity and competitiveness, we are starting to see a transformation in various industries in this country.

It is precisely what is necessary to reduce the emissions intensity of our economy overall and to square up to our international responsibilities in tackling climate change. Who in their right mind and exercising any semblance of economic responsibility would imagine that our No. 1 trading partner—China, which is introducing a carbon price through an emission trading scheme arrangement and with whom they wish to link our emissions trading schemes—would imagine that Australia could simply sit around and do nothing, as advocated by the coalition? The proposition that the opposition leader has put forward to the community, that this is all the death and destruction of the Australian economy, is not only totally ridiculous and now proved demonstrably to be so, but also that it be repealed is equally absurd.

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