Ms GILLARD (Lalor—Prime Minister) (14:01): I say to the Leader of the Opposition: here we are, back to the same old siren song of negativity and distorting the facts. He says he is concerned about this pensioner in Western Australia. I do understand that pensioners around the country actually struggle to make ends meet. We in this government understand that, which is why we were responsible for an historic increase in the pension, something delivered by this government and never delivered by those opposite when they had the opportunity. We delivered an historic pension increase. Then, when we put in place carbon pricing, because we were concerned about the circumstances of those on fixed incomes we ensured that we not only gave them the amount of money that would be necessary to deal with the average flow-through price impact, we gave them extra money because we wanted them, knowing that their budgets are tight, to benefit from this package. The Leader of the Opposition well knows that the big drivers of electricity price increases in Western Australia are local factors and decisions of the Western Australian government. Opposition members interjecting— Ms GILLARD: As much as the opposition might interject and yell, they cannot get away from the fact that there have been 62 per cent increases in Western Australia over the last 40 years, and that is not about carbon pricing; that is about the decisions of the Western Australian government. Premier Barnett has, in fact, dealt with this matter publicly and has apologised to the people of Western Australia for the huge increases that his government is responsible for. We took a different approach to Premier Barnett. We knew that there would be an increase in electricity prices of 10 per cent. That was modelled accurately by Treasury. We ensured that those who needed support the most were assisted, including the pensioner who the Leader of the Opposition refers to. So if he has a genuine concern I suggest he does the following. I suggest that he speaks to Premier Barnett about assisting people in his state on fixed incomes with the increases that Premier Barnett has been responsible for. I also suggest that he get on board with the government's approach and the government's plan to deal at the next COAG meeting with these kinds of increases in electricity prices, rather than trying to confuse and mislead about the true drivers of electricity prices.