Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Sadly for them, that is not the evidence of their own cabinet when they were in government, as has been outlined by many in this debate. Their own cabinet in government, of which the current Leader of the Opposition was a member, supported bills, actions and policies to put a price on carbon and to introduce a market based system to put that price in place. Now, of course, they want to rewrite history. At that point in time they were not saying it was a devastating outcome for jobs. What they were saying was that it was an important new opportunity for us as a nation to move into a greener future and to find the jobs of the future. So all the crocodile tears that we hear now, which are never backed up by action to support jobs such as voting in support of the Steel Transformation Plan, are absolutely contradictory to the record of their own party and their own decisions and, indeed, their own government when they were in government in this country. I am very disappointed that my colleague the member for Gilmore and, no doubt, the senator in the other place will not vote in support of local jobs in the Illawarra. It is a real shame that they cannot look beyond their own political message and support local jobs. I express my support in the belief that this will create opportunities as well for jobs in my regions and, more broadly, across the nation. (Time expired)

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