Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I was asked about the impact of a carbon price on our coal industry, which is so important to the generation of jobs and wealth for our country. The underlying factor is this: the industry understands there needs to be a price on carbon and that is why they are continuing to invest. And for the shadow Treasurer to ask me this question today, when the capital investment, the CAPEX figures, have come out and they are truly strong and very encouraging for the future of our economy, and when we have just today got the report from ABARE talking about how the pipeline of investment in coal and iron ore is growing—it just demonstrates that he has not got a clue what is going on in our economy. The fact is that the industry understands that carbon is going to be priced and they are continuing to invest. We have an unprecedented investment boom in our nation. But of course that is not understood by anybody on the other side of the House, because all they want to do is score cheap political points and run incredibly stupid scare campaigns.

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