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

I thank the member for his question. It is not clear to me whether he slept through the parliamentary term 2007 to 2010 or he has simply forgotten it, but if he remembered that parliamentary term he would recall that the question of pricing carbon was probably one of the biggest single debates we had in this parliament. Obviously, our overwhelming Work Choices was also a very big debate. As we worked through our way through the question of pricing carbon, those on the opposition benches had every potential position known to humankind. They believed in climate change, they did not believe in climate change; they believed in pricing carbon, they did not believe in pricing carbon; they believed in a market based mechanism, they preferred a tax—and on and on it went. Courtesy of the member for Wentworth, we finally found out what was driving all of this division within the opposition.

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