Ms PLIBERSEK (Sydney—Minister for Social Inclusion and Minister for Human Services) (15:53): I reckon most people listening today would be amazed by the hypocrisy and the irony of the shadow minister for families, housing and human services talking about jobs and job security. From someone who is out there carrying the spear for a reintroduction of Work Choices—and we all know what that meant for Australian families, their pay, their conditions and their job security—to be in here talking about jobs is the height of hypocrisy. He talked about a typical Australian family on $160,000 a year. It might be typical of the people he is hanging around with but it is not typical of the two out of three households who will benefit at least to the amount that their prices are expected to go up under these changes or the nine out of 10 households who will receive some assistance because of the measures we passed yesterday. Typical, according to the shadow minister opposite is a family on $160,000 a year—how incredibly out of touch the shadow minister is. The shadow minister talks about the jobs of Australian families at the same time as the Leader of the Opposition yesterday was encouraging his members to vote against the jobs of steelworkers right around Australia. The Leader of the Opposition, who was in here crying crocodile tears about the steelworkers of Whyalla and Whyalla being wiped off the map of Australia, was in here yesterday voting against the jobs of steelworkers around Australia. When the shadow minister talks about going out and reminding constituents about what happened in here yesterday I hope he goes out and reminds the people of Australia that the opposition yesterday voted against a clean energy future for this country. I hope that he goes out and reminds the constituents in his electorate and electorates all around Australia that yesterday the opposition in here voted against pension increases. I hope that he goes out and reminds people right around Australia that yesterday the opposition voted against tax cuts for ordinary working families. I hope that he goes out and reminds people all around Australia that yesterday the opposition voted against increases in family benefits. I hope that he goes out and reminds people all around Australia that yesterday the opposition voted against protecting our environment, our beautiful natural environment—Kakadu, the Great Barrier Reef— Mr Christensen: What's a tax going to do for it? Ms PLIBERSEK: the beautiful alpine areas of Victoria. You do not care about the Great Barrier Reef. Think about the jobs in your electorate that depend on the Great Barrier Reef—billions of dollars worth of tourism put at risk because of your vandalism in here yesterday. Mr Christensen interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. Peter Slipper ): The honourable member for Dawson will show a modicum of restraint. Ms PLIBERSEK: To be in here talking about the family budget and jobs when we saw yesterday the vandals opposite voting against jobs and voting against the family budget strikes me as the height of hypocrisy. They are talking about who is going to be worse off and the family budget under pressure. What is their plan? Mr Stephen Jones: They don't have one. Ms PLIBERSEK: There is a bit of a plan. They also say that they want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I am not sure why because half of them say— Mr Tudge interjecting— Ms PLIBERSEK: You do not want to? Are you saying that it is not your policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? There you go talking about policy on the run— The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The minister will address her remarks through the chair. Ms PLIBERSEK: and we heard it here first. It is no longer opposition policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by five per cent. It is no longer their policy. Let's talk about what used to be their policy until you heard this announcement first today in the House of Representatives. It used to be opposition policy until about a minute ago that they would also meet the targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. How are they going to do it? They are going to do it through the tax system. They say that they are going to do it by direct investment, by picking winners. They are going to go out to industry, they are going to pick winners and they are going to pour billions of dollars of taxpayers' money into picking those winners. They cannot tell us how much it is going to cost to reach the five per cent reduction target. But you know what? We have done the numbers. We know those across the chamber cannot actually add up but we have done the numbers of how much is actually going to cost them to meet their five per cent reduction target and guess what? It will cost every household in Australia $1,300. We had a few cameos from the shadow minister opposite and I actually wanted to share a cameo of my own with colleagues. We have a typical middle-income family—I actually do not think that $160,000 a year is a typical family income so here is a family income that I think is a little more typical—mum, dad and three children aged four, seven and nine. Dad is earning $52½ thousand a year, mum is working part time earning $17½ thousand a year which gives a total of $75,000 a year family income. They will get $332 extra in government payments and a $982 tax cut. They will receive around $1,300 in carbon price assistance under our plan. The same family will pay $1,300 to the big polluters under the opposition's plan. So this family, even after any impact of carbon pricing on their cost of living, will be more than $700 a year better off. With that $700 they could invest in more energy efficient appliances—maybe replace their heater or the hot water system—and bring their electricity costs down some more. There is something that I want to share with you about electricity prices. The shadow minister talks about the price of electricity going up—and it is quite shocking how much the price of electricity has been going up in some of the states and territories. The carbon pricing legislation has not been introduced yet. Could it be that the state and territory governments are not running their electricity systems as well as they should be and that those price effects are affecting ordinary working Australians? Could it be that this is not a pre-emptive price increase related to the carbon tax? I think that it is important to put on the public record the fact that our economy and jobs will continue to grow strongly under these clean energy bills. We estimate 1.6 million more jobs will be created by 2020. Treasury modelling shows that average incomes will continue to rise and they will be around $9,000 higher in 2020 and around $30,000 higher in 2050. Would you ever hear that from the opposition? No; they are in the business of going around and scaring the daylights out of people. It is also worth having a look, I think, at the average price impact on an ordinary family. Independent Treasury modelling shows that pricing carbon pollution is expected to have a 0.7 per cent impact on the price of living. That is less than 1c for every dollar spent—not even 1c for every dollar spent. The shadow minister was here when the Howard government introduced a GST. What impact did the GST have on the price of living? The GST had a 2½ per cent impact on the price of living—more than three times the impact that pricing carbon is likely to have. So when this 0.7 per cent impact happens after 1 July—which, mind you, is after the time that people have received their lump sums to help with the price impact—what will the price of Weet-Bix increase by? It will increase by 0.00024c per Weet-Bix. An $11 packet of mince will rise by 4c. A $3.75 fillet of ocean trout will increase by 1½c. The shadow minister was banging on about the price of a loaf of bread. Let us look at how much a loaf of bread will increase. I was going to say 'rise' but that would have been a bad joke, wouldn't it? Mr McCormack: Sounds pretty crumby to me. Ms PLIBERSEK: Thank you—it sounds crumby. The cost of a loaf of bread will rise 0.016c—less than one cent. Tim Tams will increase— Government members interjecting— Ms PLIBERSEK: I know some of my colleagues are very interested in this one. Tim Tams will increase by 0.012c per Tim Tam. So I think the colleagues are still going to be able to afford their Tim Tams. I now need to turn to the impact that some of the opposition's previous policies had on ordinary working families, because this is a very serious matter. Those opposite have been crying crocodile tears—when every single day they were in government they were screwing down the wages and conditions of ordinary working families, taking money out of health care and undermining our public education system. The hypocrisy of that! Studies show that casual and part-time sales assistants lost an average of 12 per cent of earnings under Work Choices. AWAs were especially bad for women, with women working full time on AWAs taking home $87.40 per week less than workers on collective agreements. In 64 per cent of AWAs, annual leave loadings were cut; in 63 per cent, penalty rates were cut; in 52 per cent, shift work loadings were cut; in 51 per cent, overtime loadings were cut; and in 46 per cent, public holiday pay was cut. The hypocrisy of those opposite talking about how they feel about ordinary working families when everything they did in here was against their interests is astonishing. And I remind people of their opposition now. They are opposed to pension increases that come out of the clean energy bills. They are opposed to family benefit increases coming out of these bills. They are opposed to investment in steel jobs, coal jobs and industry jobs that come out of these bills. But, at the same time, what are they supporting? They are supporting the big mining companies against the mining communities that will benefit, against the workers who will get an increase in their superannuation and against the small businesses that will see their taxes cut because of the minerals resource rent tax. Who are they supporting when it comes to poker machines? They are supporting the big gambling interests against ordinary working families. Who are they supporting when it comes to tobacco advertising? They are supporting big, wealthy, multinational tobacco companies against the 15,000 Australians who die of smoking related illnesses every year. Do you know that the cigarette companies kill more people in Australia than they employ here every year? Guess whose side the opposition are on on that one! Every single time they are for the interests of the big guy against the little guy. What we saw yesterday continues their opposition to a clean environment and continues their opposition to investing in our clean energy future. And what will happen if they get in and reverse—as they say they will—these tax cuts? They will reverse the pension increases; they will reverse the industry assistance. They will put a million people back into the tax system who have had their tax-free threshold tripled. They will drop their tax-free threshold. We know they will not do that. We know that they will never have the courage to do what they claim they are going to do, and reverse this carbon tax. That is a good thing, because we need this clean energy future. (Time expired)