Download Fragment

Thursday, 13 October 2011
Page: 11857

Carbon Pricing

Mr SCHULTZ (Hume) (14:18): Mr Speaker, thank you for your support of the Kids with Cancer Foundation. My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to the situation facing Sarah Jane Furniture, a manufacturer in Cowra that employs over 130 Australians and estimates there will be an increase in its weekly power bill from $13,000 to $21,000 because of the carbon tax. Why is there no compensation for this business when it has achieved a 36 per cent reduction in its carbon footprint over the last three years at its own expense?

Ms GILLARD (Lalor—Prime Minister) (14:19): In answer to the member's question, firstly, I would be very happy to work with the member to get additional information to the business that he identifies in his electorate because the power figures he has used and the anticipated increase are not right, cannot be right and if the business believes them to be right then clearly it does not have the full information. The figure he used was something like a 50 per cent increase. Of course, that is not right. I would be very happy to work with the member to get accurate information to that business about any cost changes it should expect to see. I would also be very happy to work with the member to make sure the business that he has identified as a manufacturing business is kept informed of the rollout of the more than $1 billion that has been set aside in the carbon pricing package in order to work with manufacturing for a clean technology future. I would be very happy to work with the member to make sure this business gets that information.

The member's question highlights that as a result of many, many months of a fear campaign there are many Australians who are anxious but who do not need to be anxious. They have been given the wrong information by the Leader of the Opposition. They have deliberately had their fear and anxiety stoked by the Leader of the Opposition. Those Australians have heard some of the wild and ridiculous claims made about astronomical increases in prices when the impact on households is less than 1c in the dollar or less than one per cent of CPI.

Mr Schultz: On a point of order, Mr Speaker, I asked the Prime Minister a very specific question. I did not ask her about the veracity of the information I received from an employer of 130 people in my electorate.

The SPEAKER: The Prime Minister is responding to the question.

Ms GILLARD: I am very seriously responding to the member's question because it does concern me that a business that employs 130 people is obviously anxious about a power rise of that magnitude when it will not occur. That does concern me. I am saying to the member that I am very happy to work with him so that he sees all of the information and is able to give it to the business involved. Of course, I would want the business to know about the assistance that is available for a clean technology future. I was going on to make a broader point about the anxiety and fear that has been stoked by false campaigning. I do believe that false campaigning should come to an end and that people should get accurate information about the package. I am very happy to work with the member on doing that.

Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Leader of the Opposition) (14:22): Mr Speaker, I ask a supplementary question. Is the Prime Minister seriously suggesting that she knows more about the business of Sarah Jane Furniture than the member for Hume and the principals of the business? Is this Prime Minister arrogant enough to seriously believe that she knows more about the business than they do?

The SPEAKER: Order! I remind the Leader of the Opposition that a question couched in those terms, which is wider than allowed by the standing orders, has consequences. The Prime Minister has the call.

Ms GILLARD (Lalor—Prime Minister) (14:23): To the Leader of the Opposition, no, of course I am not suggesting that—how absurd. The proprietors of those businesses will always know more about those businesses than anybody else. I do say this to the Leader of the Opposition: I do believe that it is appropriate and proper to get full and accurate information to businesses about government policies and plans. He might feel that that is inappropriate. He might feel that it is not right for people to get to the truth. He might feel that people should be denied that information. He might prefer it if people never heard the facts.

I do not share that with him. I think this business deserves the respect of getting all of the information and all of the facts. I have just made a very open offer to the member in good faith and very genuinely to do that. He has used a figure about increases in power costs which simply seems to me to imply that there are some misapprehensions in that business about the imposition of carbon pricing and the way it will work in our economy. I am very happy to work with the member on that.

To the Leader of the Opposition I would say after this discussion that we had in the lead up to yesterday's vote, after this debate of over more than 10 years now, the vote yesterday was about this nation's future. It was about jobs, prosperity and clean energy. I know the Leader of the Opposition thinks that it was about politics and personal pointscoring. It was about something far more important than that. What I never hear from the Leader of the Opposition is him engaging with this national debate. He is there with a policy that everyone knows will not work. He is there with a policy that will take money out of the purses and wallets of families—

Mr Pyne interjecting—

The SPEAKER: The member for Sturt is warned!

Ms GILLARD: and give it to the biggest polluters. He is there with a policy he has no active belief in because he has said in the past that he is in favour of carbon pricing. He has supported in the past an emissions trading scheme and he is now trying to pretend to the Australian people that somehow he is going to act on pricing carbon if he is ever elected. He should stop this pretence and he should actually engage with this debate on the basis of what is in the national interest, not his political interest. It is time for the nation to seize this new clean energy future—that was what yesterday's vote was all about.