House debates

Thursday, 28 October 2010

Questions without Notice

Economy

2:00 pm

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

Of course, what the Leader of the Opposition is seeking to distort is the nature of this debate. The reason that you put a price on carbon is to create incentives to engage in economic activity and, when engaging in that economic activity, to not produce the same level of carbon emissions—that is, you want to create an incentive structure so that people reduce emissions. Let me adopt the words of Marius Kloppers to explain this to the Leader of the Opposition, because I think he put it elegantly:

… carbon emissions need to have a cost impact in order to cause the consumer to change behaviour and favour low-carbon alternatives.

Marius Kloppers, the head of BHP, goes on:

We also believe that such a global initiative will eventually come, and when it does Australia will need to have acted ahead of it to maintain its competitiveness.

On the question of electricity and carbon pricing and industry calling out for certainty, I would refer the Leader of the Opposition to the words of Richard McIndoe, Managing Director of TRUenergy, who said:

We all would like a price on carbon.

               …            …            …

If it’s not done in this government and if this uncertainty continues, not for two to three years, but four to five years, and nobody is building, then you will have power shortages and insufficient capacity.

Words that I would recommend the Leader of the Opposition think about. If the Leader of the Opposition has not found that persuasive then I would refer him to the editorial of the Australian Financial Review where it says:

If the Coalition wants to play in this game, it will have to abandon its opposition to “a great big new tax”, acknowledge that a carbon price is inevitable and desirable, and lend its weight to the effort to find the best formula. There is opposition and there is opposition for opposition’s sake, but this is a necessary reform that the Coalition should support.

Across this week the debate in this parliament has been focused on those who support economic reform and strengthening our nation for the future. To those that believe in opposition for opposition’s sake and simply wrecking reform, and clearly the Leader of the Opposition does, I would say it comes at the ultimate cost of the strength of this nation and the future of Australian families.

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