Carbon price may be loser in Australian election - 19 Jul 2010
Carbon trading was the first issue on the agenda of the Australian federal election campaign this weekend after prime minister Julia Gillard said the country will go to the polls on 21 August.
The opposition stepped up pressure on Gillard to outline her policy over the weekend and vowed that any Liberal government would never introduce a price on carbon.
Liberal leader Tony Abbott said that even if the international community agreed on a carbon price, a government led by him would not necessarily back it.
"I do not support the government going out there and making consumers pay a price on carbon," he said.
"One thing is for sure, if this government is re-elected there will be a carbon price. It will be a high one and it will impact on everyone's standard of living."
The ruling Labor party claim that this is not necessarily true. It delayed the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in April until at least 2013 after failing twice to get it through the senate. Since then Julia Gillard has toppled former prime minister Kevin Rudd but has not readopted the scheme for fear of alienating voters.
But her hand may yet be forced. Polls over the weekend show Labor holds a knife-edge lead over the opposition, indicating that the Green Party is likely to become kingmaker in any future government.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported this morning that a deal was on the verge of being struck between Labor and the Greens, without providing the terms of the agreement.
But in a radio interview at the weekend with Green Party leader Bob Brown said he would campaign hard for a carbon price and a carbon tax.
In other interviews Brown has outlined a plan to fix the carbon price at AU$23 (about £13) a tonne in a scheme that would start in July next year – a flagship policy that his party would find it very hard to ditch and still retain credibility.
The scheme would stay in place until a new global climate treaty was struck and would resolve uncertainty about long-term emissions targets. Brown has also called for an end to coal-fired power and old-growth logging.
However, polls across the country have shown slipping support for a price on carbon and Labor may try to bury the scheme if it is likely to lose a significant share of votes.
A report last year by British firm Maplecroft placed Australia's per-capita output of carbon dioxide as the highest anywhere in the world, about five times the level of top polluter China.
