Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is again to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to the economic modelling by Frontier Economics for the New South Wales Treasury on the impact of the emissions trading scheme on regional Australia and comments reported today by its author that the jobs cost will be ‘very high’ and ‘very severe’. Will the Prime Minister now release his own government’s modelling on the cost of the emissions trading scheme on jobs in regional Australia such as in Newcastle, Gladstone and Mount Isa?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the question of the impact of the emissions trading scheme, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, as the government has proposed in regional Australia, the honourable member will be familiar with the structure of what the government has put forward—namely, a raft of assistance mechanisms for emissions-intensive trade-exposed sectors of the economy, a raft of assistance measures through the electricity supply industry in Australia, a raft of measures to assist other affected industries in the climate change adjustment fund, and a raft of measures to assist households in their adjustment. We believe that this set of measures provides an appropriate framework to assist economies in the transition to a lower carbon economy. It gets the balance right between acting for the environment and acting for jobs. We would ask those opposite to honour their previous commitments to get behind a positive piece of legislation for the economy, for the environment and for climate change for the future.