Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Back. Senator Back, as was made clear last year when we introduced the legislation—at a time when the Liberal Party were going to support the legislation, at a time when you believed in the need for urgent action on climate change, at a time when there was a consensus in Australian politics on the need for action—all this information was released. That included fully costed compensation to Australian families that made sure that big polluters carried the cost of the trading scheme. What we have now seen from the Liberal Party is that the taxpayer is going to carry the can for the Liberal Party’s policy, which does not even cap emissions.

As was made clear at the time, the Australian government undertook to provide, through the tax and welfare systems, compensation to families and households for the costs involved in the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and the trading mechanism introduced. We said that compensation would be paid. We laid it out. We costed it. We made clear how it was to be paid. At the time, the Liberal Party indicated its support for the proposition. It was going to support the proposition. But there was a revolution inside the Liberal Party. The people who deny climate change is having any impact got the numbers and now the Liberal Party’s policy is to deny climate change but to pretend they have a policy—a con job—that somehow says, ‘Even though we don’t believe there’s climate change’—