Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I remind the Prime Minister of the statement by Victorian Police Commissioner Ken Lay, who last week told Melbourne radio:

… We budgeted … about $3 million for next year for the Carbon Tax.

Can the Prime Minister explain why this $3 million carbon tax payment should not be used to put more police on the streets?

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

To the member who asked the question: as the member would be aware, there are a broad range of payments from the federal government to state governments. I would invite the member to compare the range of payments that this government now makes to the government of Victoria, as compared to when he was sitting on the government benches. We have worked with state colleagues in a very generous way to do things like help alleviate the burden of growing health costs by partnering fifty-fifty in future growth, and doubling the amount of money going into school education. We have worked with our state colleagues on housing, on disabilities, with more money going into every area. So I would say to the member that if he is concerned about the ability of state governments to get on with their job, then he would have a considerable job of explaining the treatment of state governments and their essential services when he was a member of the government.

As the member also well knows, the overwhelming cost of policing our streets is about the cost of the police officers who do it, the wages and salaries of the police officers who do it, and it is absurd for the member to suggest that that situation has in any way been changed by putting a price on carbon.