Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Gilmore for her question. First and foremost, pensioners have had a historic rise in the pension as the result of the actions of this government. I pay tribute to the relevant minister, the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, for her making that decision, which has assisted pensioners around the country. Undoubtedly many older Australians, many Australians on limited and fixed incomes, still find it very, very difficult to make ends meet. I understand that.

Electricity prices, power prices, place a particular burden on people. I understand the member for Gilmore would be concerned about this but I would ask her to recognise that experts in the field, whether it is TRUenergy or others in the energy sector, are telling us that one of the factors that puts great upward pressure on electricity prices is the lack of investment in new power generation. That lack of investment in new power generation is occurring because of a lack of certainty by industry about what will happen with carbon pricing. So for as long as industry is uncertain we will see this lack of investment, and it is this lack of investment that puts upward pressure on electricity prices.

This really is a matter of common sense. We are talking about multibillion dollar investments and consequently people want certainty. In the election campaign the member for Gilmore may have seen that the government committed itself to introducing mandatory standards for electricity generation in relation to the future of power stations. We do not want to see in the future new power stations constructed that are high carbon emitters; we do not want to see new dirty coal fired power stations constructed. We will work in consultation with industry to set the standard that will be there for the future and that will give some certainty to industry as they invest.

Beyond that, industry is asking us to address the question of carbon pricing. The government has set about doing that through the multiparty committee working in a collaborative way to look at options for pricing carbon. If the member for Gilmore is seriously concerned about these questions, and I accept in good faith that she is, then the best thing for her to do would be to seek to persuade her party leader, the Leader of the Opposition, to become involved in the process and to go back to the version of the Leader of the Opposition that existed on 2 October last year. He has just got to take himself back 12 months to when he believed in pricing carbon. If he believed in pricing carbon then, there is no reason he should not believe in it now and be involved in this process.

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