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

I thank the shadow Treasurer for bringing to an end the Leader of the Opposition's cost-of-living scare campaign. The next time the Leader of the Opposition says the cost-of-living increases will be 'astronomical', we will remind him of this moment when the shadow Treasurer pulled the rug out from under him.

To the shadow Treasurer: the figures that the government has worked on are the figures that have been modelled by Treasury. As electricity price regulators around the nation have made the determinations about the impact of carbon pricing on electricity prices, that modelling has been shown to be right—bang on the money. It has been right in Queensland and right in New South Wales—right in those places where electricity price regulators have actually sat and made a determination about the impact of carbon pricing. So the shadow Treasurer should know that the Treasury modelling done by the same people that the shadow Treasurer relied on when he was in government has been verified to date.

The shadow Treasurer should also acknowledge that, for the lowest income Australian families, we have provided a buffer of more compensation. They will come out better off. That is something that the shadow Treasurer wants to rip away from them. He wants to make them worse off. Millions of Australian families will receive enough compensation for the flow-through impact of carbon pricing. The real risk to the cost-of-living pressures for these families actually arises from the shadow Treasurer and his $70-billion plan to rip away the services that Australians rely on, his plan to take away their tax cuts, his plan to take away their pension increases, his plan to rip away their family payments, his plan to even rip away family payments not at all associated with carbon pricing, and his direct refusal to assist families with the cost of getting the kids to school.

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