Julia Gillard not up on carbon scheme, says Christine Milne

GREENS leader Christine Milne has revealed she didn’t believe Julia Gillard was initially across the detail of the carbon pricing scheme.

GREENS leader Christine Milne has revealed she didn’t believe Julia Gillard was initially across the detail of the Labor-Greens carbon pricing scheme which led to the former prime minister’s “disastrous’’ concession that the policy was a carbon tax.

The misstep handed Tony Abbott the ammunition he needed to tear down the carbon tax and exposed Labor to a concerted Coalition campaign that it had broken its election promise.

Mr Abbott last week secured enough crossbench support to pass the repeal of the carbon tax.

The Greens demanded the carbon tax as a “price of government’’ when it helped Ms Gillard form minority government after the 2010 federal election.

Asked on Sky News’ Australian Agenda why support for the two-year-old carbon tax had unravelled, Senator Milne blamed vested interests questioning whether climate change was real and exaggerating the costs that would be passed on to consumers.

“I also think that a fundamental error occurred when Julia Gillard went on television and conceded that an emissions trading scheme with a fixed price was a tax — that gave Tony Abbott everything he needed to ramp up his campaign on a tax and it was the fundamental error,’’ she said.

“The fact that Labor had gone into the election saying that they weren’t going to have a carbon price or carbon tax and then — and I absolutely take responsibility for negotiating with her the price of government was to achieve a carbon price to be implemented on 1 July 2012 … but Labor had credibility difficulties in that regard.’’

Asked why Ms Gillard did not just announce an ETS, Senator Milne said “I don’t think former prime minister Gillard was really on board with the policy. She was one of the people who had opposed Kevin Rudd continuing with carbon pricing early in 2010 and I don’t think she was across the policy detail.

“Remember the time frames here. We negotiated for her to form government … and part of that was the introduction of a carbon price by 1 July 2012 and it was shortly after that, a matter of a month or two, and so I don’t think she was across the policy detail understanding the difference.’’