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

Once again, no amount of shouting and bellowing by the Leader of the Opposition changes this simple truth. It is known to members of the opposition frontbench. If the Leader of the Opposition wants advice on this he should swing his chair around and talk to the member for Wentworth. What the Leader of the Opposition well knows is that the cheapest way to cut carbon pollution is to put a price on carbon. That cannot be denied; it is the consistent advice of economists, and every living Liberal leader has accepted that—every living Liberal leader. Indeed the Leader of the Opposition has accepted too that the cheapest way of cutting carbon pollution is to put a price on carbon.

I am very satisfied in saying to the Leader of the Opposition that here in Australia we will cut carbon pollution in the cheapest possible way. We will get the big polluters to pay and we will give money to Australian working families. The Leader of the Opposition wants to run endlessly a negative fear campaign to cover up his lack of policies. But, to the extent that he has a hastily cobbled together plan, that plan requires him to take money from working families and give it to big polluters—to take $1,300 per year from working families and give it to the biggest polluters.

I have got too much respect for working families to do that to them. We will ensure that we put a price on carbon, that we reduce carbon pollution, that we reach our minus five per cent target in 2020, that we do it in the cheapest possible way, that big polluters pay the price and that working families get the benefit of a tripling of the tax-free threshold, meaning that there will be one million people not in the tax system, that working families will see tax cuts—many of them around $300 a year—that pensioners will see pension increases and that people will see family payment increases.

I want to say one word of thanks to the Leader of the Opposition. I do thank him for the fact that at the Sydney Institute last night he verified with some certainty that if he is ever elected he will rip that money out of the hands of working families. It is there in his speech for all to see—tax cuts gone, family payment increases gone, pension increases gone and $1,300 ripped out of the hands of working families. That is what the Leader of the Opposition stands for. No amount of negativity will ever change those facts.

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