SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Julia Gillard’s latest unbelievable promise on her carbon tax that petrol will be excluded doesn’t mean Australians will pay any less under the carbon tax, it simply means they will pay it elsewhere. If the Government is to meet its same emissions reductions targets then excluding petrol simply means Australians will have to pay more elsewhere to get the same emissions reductions in place. So the Government needs to come clean about how much all Australians will pay, how many people will be worse off, tell people the details, let Australians know how much more everyone is going to have to cough up for this carbon tax.
JOURNALIST: How confident are you that a deal could be announced this week?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Well that is entirely, of course, up to the Government and the Greens and the Independents. They need to put all of their cards on the table. This drip feed of information in the Sunday papers is no way to make policy and the Government claims to know how many households will get compensation, claims to know that it is going to exclude petrol, claims to know it is going to give compensation to pensioners and self-funded retirees, yet claims not to know how much its carbon tax will be, claims not to know how many people will be worse off. Well, start telling us the bad news, Ms Gillard, not just the drip bits you want to drip feed out.
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