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

There are a number of interjections, but I will not take them. I will leave them to Senator Cameron to make. The first point I would make is that the government's position in terms of the reduction of emissions is the same as the opposition's: five per cent on 2000 levels by 2020. Again, the difference is that our plan is more efficient and it will work, whereas the opposition's plan is more expensive and it will not work. That is the key difference.

In terms of the facts that Senator Birmingham put to me, he well knows, because he is not Senator Bernardi, that the electricity price increase in South Australia is in fact significantly lower, in terms of the component attributable to a carbon price, than was in fact modelled by the Treasury. The result is that the increase in price due to the carbon price is 4.6 per cent.

You do not want to hear this, do you, Senator Birmingham, because you do not want the facts to get in the way of your scare campaign? You would not want to hear the facts, would you? It is an increase of 4.6 per cent. In other words, it is significantly less than Treasury models, and our assistance package is predicated on the higher price increase. Let us remember this: in South Australia the component of price increase that is attributed to a carbon price is 4.6 per cent. The Treasury modelling was double that—nine per cent. Our assistance package is predicated on the higher amount. So, in terms of federal government policy, South Australians are obviously doing better than a number of consumers in other states. I would have thought that Senator Birmingham, as a South Australian, would be pleased to know that the assistance package for South Australians was higher than the actual cost— (Time expired)