Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

the Liberal Party and their country allies, the Nationals, have an attitude of lower taxation than Labor, and point to the facts which very much contradict that case. When we look at the competitive position of the government’s taxation measures, I would also like to examine what we are doing with the minerals rent resource tax and some of the other positive changes that we have made since 2007.

Returning to the first of the submissions as to why the impact of our taxation measures will be positive on Australia’s competitive advantage and our standard of living, we must of course talk about the need to establish a carbon price. We are putting a price on pollution because it is the right thing to do, not because it is easy or popular. Big reforms in Australia are always hard fought and are met with well-resourced scare campaigns in favour of the status quo. Action on climate change was never going to be painless—we knew that before we announced it—but governments are elected to do what is right, not what is popular. Sadly, the Leader of the Opposition blindly refuses to accept that a low-pollution future is in Australia’s national interest, because he does not believe that climate change exists. So, just as putting in place superannuation was the right to thing to do—although it was opposed by those opposite—and just as removing the tariff wall was the right thing to do, pricing carbon and building a low-pollution future is, again, the right thing to do.

It is a fact that in Australia we produce more carbon pollution per head of population than any other country—

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