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

I am very pleased to take the question on the legislation that was voted on prior to question time. It was a long time getting here. It is an important Labor reform, consistent with the Labor tradition of reform that recognises that the securing of jobs and Australian prosperity has always required reform of the economy. That is what has happened today.

I am asked about some of the so-called factual assertions from the other side. The facts are almost unknown to those opposite. We have had a fear campaign over months and months—'The sky is going to fall in; the coal industry will shut down.' Meanwhile there is more and more money being invested in mining and there is more and more investment in the pipeline. The reality is that we can increase the number of jobs in this country, we can grow our economy, we can grow our incomes and we can put in place a carbon price. That is what Treasury has told us. That is what, in fact, Treasury told Mr Howard when he agreed, for the same sorts of economic reasons, to put a price on carbon and went to the 2007 election with a commitment to an emissions trading scheme.

We have seen question after question—and I have no doubt they will continue it again today—from the other side full of factual inaccuracies and misleading information. They simply cannot deal with the fact that sometimes you need to reform. They do not like that word on that side. The only reform they want is a ripping away of wages and conditions of Australian workers. That is the only reform those on the other side know. There was a time when the Liberal Party was more reformist. It appears that is now past.