Dr EMERSON (Rankin—Minister for Trade) (14:27): I thank my friend and colleague the member for Blair for his question. I can advise him that there would be every prospect of countries that do proceed with carbon pricing retaliating against Australian exporters if we sought to have a free ride into their markets at the expense of their industries. Any delay would create a new excuse for protectionism to take hold in our export markets, which would be very damaging to our exporters. A recently released Productivity Commission report finds that Australia's top five trading partners—China, Japan, the United States, Korea and India—have implemented carbon pricing in one form or another at the national, state or city level. Far from going it alone, it is clear that Australia is around the middle of the pack in our efforts to put a price on carbon. I am asked by the member for Blair about support for a carbon price. We have seen in the newspapers today support for pricing carbon from leading Australians including Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, Fiona Stanley and Patrick McGorry—I understand that the coalition accepts that Patrick McGorry is a great Australian, as are Dr Fiona Stanley and Ian Kiernan, amongst others. There is another contributor to this debate about putting a price on carbon, and that other contributor has had this to say, sensibly: ... a new tax would be the intelligent sceptic's way to deal with minimising emissions ... Ms Macklin: Who said that? Dr EMERSON: Who said that? That is a good question. Who said a new tax would be an intelligent sceptic’s way to deal with minimising emissions? I do not think it could be the member for Wentworth because he is not a sceptic and he is intelligent. I do not think it could be the member for Flinders because he is not a sceptic and he is intelligent. I do not think it could be the member for Dickson because he is a sceptic—well, I will move on. Mr Pyne: Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Minister for Trade was asked a question about trade retaliation, which he has not addressed at all yet in his answer; instead, he has just attacked members of the opposition. I invite you to sit him down. The SPEAKER: There are a number of parts to the question. The minister appears to be addressing one of those parts. Unlike the member for Sturt in his point of order, I am not going to critique the answer. Potentially, this could be directly relevant and I will listen to where this answer is going. The minister knows his responsibility to be directly relevant. Dr EMERSON: I am responding to that part of the question which asked, 'Will the minister inform the House of recent support for a carbon tax and what is the government's response?' There has been recent support for a carbon tax by an intelligent sceptic. We know he is a sceptic because he said, 'I'm not sure about carbon dioxide being the villain that it is made out to be; the science is not settled.' So who is this self-professed intelligent sceptic? None other than the Leader of the Opposition. Come on, join us! The opposition leader should join us because he is an intelligent sceptic and he is on the record. It is written down so it is the gospel truth, not in the heat of the moment, and it must be true. What words is he speaking? He is speaking the words of a cheapjack opportunist. From this intelligent sceptic we have another commitment—that is, he will claw back any pension increases. His frontbench is right: You can't take money away from pensioners, it would kill us. On 1 July 2012 it will be the opportunist day of reckoning when the Leader of the Opposition seeks to take money back from pensioners. We will implement a carbon tax. We will put a price on carbon because it is the right thing to do for Australia and it is the right thing to do for the environment. The intelligent sceptic over there ought to get on board.