Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

Those opposite know what the Leader of the Opposition said. They are embarrassed by it. They should be embarrassed by it. It is still the case that, despite his attitudes, the Leader of the Opposition is paying lip-service to taking action on climate change. We have got him paying lip-service to quite a few things, but we know what he really thinks.

The other deceitful claims that they continue to make we heard again today from the member for Flinders and from the member for Gippsland. We only have to look at the most recent Reserve Bank of Australia minutes, released this week, to see that the Leader of the Opposition's campaign of negativity on prices is baseless. I am going to quote directly—just as I was quoting directly from the Leader of the Opposition—from the RBA minutes. They said:

… the introduction of the carbon price had not yet had a significant effect on downstream price pressures, with only isolated examples of suppliers attributing price increases to the carbon price. There was no evidence—

I will repeat that: 'there was no evidence'—

that the carbon price had raised medium-term inflation expectations.

That was the Reserve Bank of Australia on the price impacts.

On jobs, this is something that those opposite like to point to. What hypocrisy from this opposition, an opposition which has remained mute, struck dumb, by the massive cuts that have been occurring in the state of Queensland. It is good that there are members opposite from Queensland here to listen to this. Australians now know that the biggest risk to their jobs is the election of a Liberal government, as the Queensland state Liberals have shown. How those opposite can bring themselves to pretend that they care about jobs when they welcome the destructive cuts that we have seen in the state of Queensland, the destructive cuts they have seen from their Liberal colleagues, is beyond me.

The Leader of the Opposition's Mini-Me, Queensland Premier Campbell Newman, told Australians before his budget that he had discussed with the Leader of the Opposition the details of the cuts he was proposing to make and that the Leader of the Opposition enthusiastically supported him on those cuts. Of course, he has gone ahead and made those cuts, so we know, and all other Australians know, exactly what we are going to get if there is ever—perish the thought—a Liberal federal government. Just like the cuts that we have seen from Premier Newman in sacking nurses, sacking teachers and sacking police, a federal Liberal government would sack public servants in vast numbers, gutting services and communities. We know they would do it and they would relish it, because that is what Liberal governments do. They would like nothing more than to get back into government and get right into cutting the pay and conditions of Australian working people. (Time expired)

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