Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer and refers to his previous answers today. Now that the Treasurer has confirmed that a carbon tax will include petrol, will the Treasurer inform the House whether his carbon tax on petrol will increase the price on fuel by more than 2½c a litre or less than 2½c a litre for every $10 of the tax?

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted I have received another question on this from the Leader of the Opposition because, yet again, it just confirms the nonsense that comes from those opposite. The government is determined to put a price on carbon and for that we say this is an essential economic reform and that it must be done. Those opposite want to run around and pretend there is some cost-free way of dealing with climate change. They want to pretend that if we do not deal with climate change nothing will happen. But we all know that the cost of not acting on climate change is far higher than the cost of acting. That is point No. 1.

They want to pretend that they have some scheme to deal with reducing carbon pollution. They have a series of proposals that they took to the last election but every report that has come out—including the one from industry this week—proves that their direct action and intervention will actually make prices higher than if we introduced a carbon price. That is why we say that a carbon price is the cheapest and most efficient way of addressing carbon pollution. It is the cheapest and most efficient way.

What those opposite have on offer is an alternative which will provide for higher prices. They stand up and ask, ‘What’s the design of the scheme?’ We are working our way through designing that with a multiparty committee. Of course, that is not a secret. The multiparty committee is meeting every couple of weeks. Those opposite sit in this House and pretend that that is news. It is not news. We are determined to move towards a price on carbon because it is a fundamental economic reform in this country which will secure our prosperity for the future and mean that we will be able to generate the jobs and wealth that Australian families and industry expect.

What do we get in the face of that? We get more of this opposition of opposition’s sake because they think they can put their own political interests before the national interest. For our part, when it comes to responding to responding to natural disasters and when it comes to dealing with the challenges of mining boom mark 2 we will always put the national interest first.