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

It must come as news to Senator Brandis, but this parliament has actually passed legislation introducing a carbon price. It may have gone past Senator Brandis as he focuses on persecuting people without proper hearing in his public comments. We have legislated to introduce a price on carbon. The parliament has passed that legislation and if the senator is not aware, I inform him that on 1 July this year that system came into place. We did that because there had been a series of reports and inquiries over many years that pointed us to the need for that price. I remember Mr Costello, the former Liberal Party Treasurer, advocating for it. And then there was a very fine report done in 2007, which the then Prime Minister John Howard accepted; he argued as a result of that report that we as a nation ought to bring in a price on carbon. So both major parties in this country have for a number of years now supported a price on carbon. But when the Liberal Party ambushed Mr Turnbull, we saw the extreme right wing forces in the Liberal Party overthrow Mr Turnbull and renege on that commitment to climate change policy. We know that now the carbon price is in place the Liberal Party will never repeal it, because they know that, at the end of the day, this is good for the Australian economy. The transition is being made. Appropriate compensation arrangements are being put in place for industry and we know that this is a good thing for the environment and for the Australian economy. (Time expired)