Kevin Rudd's insincerity cost Labor the ETS

PLAYING politics with policy has derailed the Rudd government's legislative, political and election agenda on the emissions trading scheme.

PLAYING politics with policy has derailed the Rudd government's legislative, political and election agenda on the emissions trading scheme.

Because it was too cute by half in playing politics with the Liberal Party's leadership, the government is left with a double-dissolution election trigger it cannot pull and doesn't even want to acknowledge it has.

It has a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in a form it cannot take to an election, which will turn industry campaign funds towards the Liberal Party and that is wide open to Tony Abbott's threatened GST-style tax attack. The CPRS bill, which forms the basis of the double-dissolution trigger for an election of both houses, is not even in a form the government wanted. The Prime Minister will have great difficulty calling a double-dissolution election before next August, because he cannot guarantee the amendments negotiated with Malcolm Turnbull, which give concessions to the coal and electricity generation industries and permanently exempt agriculture.

If Labor pulls the trigger it now holds, it will still be dependent on the Coalition to pass the amendments even after an election victory and a joint sitting of parliament -- exactly the same position it has been in for the past six months.

Julia Gillard's announcement yesterday that the government would give the Liberals "one more chance" to pass the ETS, "in the national interest", is a political cover story. It also makes a mockery of the so-called deal with the Coalition, which was supposed to be only open for a week and further delays action on climate change.

The Rudd government's political attempts to pass the amended ETS under the guise of giving "concessions" to help Turnbull in the Coalition partyroom -- instead of putting forward an ETS it really wanted -- has backfired.

Because Turnbull, who always wanted to pass the ETS, failed to get the amendments through the partyroom and has been replaced by Tony Abbott, who is opposing it root and branch, the government's options have suddenly become limited.

For a start, Rudd cannot pull the trigger he has for an election next March unless he is prepared to fight it on the original CPRS bill -- without the industry concessions -- and without a guarantee he can pass the amendments.

Labor will introduce a new bill in February when parliament resumes that will include all the amendments as the Liberals' last chance. But if it is rejected, the government can only call an early election using the old bill which was rejected yesterday.

It could then use the new bill as the basis for a political campaign but couldn't put it to a joint sitting of parliament to be passed after an election victory. Industry would have no choice but to bankroll anti-government, anti-EST campaigns in support of the Coalition.

To get a double-dissolution election based on the new bill the government would have to reintroduce it in the budget session in May after the rejection in February. The earliest it could practically hold a climate change election would be August, when the option of a normal House of Representatives and half-Senate election becomes available.

That's a delay of a year in dealing with the "greatest moral challenge" because the government didn't put forward its real ETS policy as negotiated with business, industry and farmers and really deal with the Liberals to pass the bill.