Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

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.

See this speech in context