Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

The extent to which this was a politically motivated exercise is really demonstrated by the fact that the report does not actually include the assistance packages within the government's Clean Energy Future package. It does not actually include the crucial assistance measures that the government has put in place. What an extraordinary proposition: you throw together some modelling, a month after the release of the carbon package, the Clean Energy Future package, to enable you to jump aboard Mr Abbott's scare campaign in order to be able to make false claims ahead of the COAG meeting—all this from a Premier who once supported a price on carbon! It is the case also that not only did the Victorian government fail to include the totality of the assistance measures to support industry and to support jobs in the context of pricing carbon; there is also quite a deliberate attempt to mislead in terms of the outcomes, which was repeated in the senator's question. I look forward to responding to that. (Time expired)