Ms GILLARD (Lalor—Prime Minister) (14:05): Once again, we see that the Leader of the Opposition has come to parliament today with a mouthful of insults and a mind completely blank when it comes to ideas. That is not national leadership. On the question of telling the truth, I distinctly recall the Leader of the Opposition, before the election in 2004, when talking about the Medicare safety net, giving a commitment that it would not be changed and making a 'cast-iron commitment, absolutely'. He was asked about the percentage of out-of-pocket costs and he said 'an absolutely, rock-solid, ironclad commitment'—smashed, of course, the day after the election. Then on the question of carbon pricing, which the Leader of the Opposition asked me about, who said this, 'An emissions trading scheme probably is the best way to put a price on carbon'? Who said that? That would be the Leader of the Opposition. So for the Leader of the Opposition to come in with his insults and his confected outrage really is not persuasive at all. National leadership requires us to tackle the challenges of the future. Mr Pyne: Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In the question and the supplementary, the Prime Minister was asked to answer for her own words. If she is not prepared to defend her own words before the election, she should sit down. The SPEAKER: Whilst the question may have invited debate, the debate must be directly relevant to the question. The Prime Minister has the call. Ms GILLARD: I could not have been asked a broader question about national leadership, and I am responding to it. National leadership requires us to tackle climate change. National leadership requires us to tackle it in the most efficient way possible. National leadership therefore requires us to ask the big polluters to pay and to use that money to assist Australian families. That is what I stand for: asking the thousand biggest polluters in this country to pay and using that money to assist Australian families, protect jobs and fund programs to tackle climate change. The Leader of the Opposition stands for taking money off Australian families and giving it to big polluters. Well, I will continue to stand up for the interests of hardworking Australian families. It is a question for the Leader of the Opposition to answer who he stands up for. The answer appears to be: big polluters.