CONCERNS are growing within the federal government that Kevin Rudd is losing control of the political agenda after a series of policy reversals capped off by the dumping of Labor's key climate change policy.
The Prime Minister's decision to delay the ETS will save billions in the May 11 federal budget, while the NSW government immediately said the predicted massive electricity price rises under the scheme would by much smaller, The Australian reports.
NSW Energy Minister John Robertson said energy price increases would be significantly smalled over the next three years in NSW because of the delay of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
Integral Energy price increases would now be about 20 per cent, compared with 46 per cent under the CPRS, and EnergyAustralia's increases would be 36 per cent compared with 60 per cent.
Country Energy electricity prices would rise 42 per cent rather than 44 per cent.
Mr Robertson's comments came despite Climate Change Minister Penny Wong saying last month: "Claims that the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is driving electricity price rises in NSW from July this year are simply wrong."
As the Prime Minister continues to dump contentious and costly policies before the May 11 budget, some Labor MPs fear too many policy reversals and broken promises are being wheeled out in too short a time, creating a perception of panic.
Mr Rudd yesterday walked away from his 2007 claim that the election campaign should feature three leaders' debates including a contest on the Sunday before polling day.
It also emerged that a plan to build 260 childcare centres on school grounds, which was dumped last week on the grounds it was not needed, was on course for a $500 million blowout.
Mr Rudd's sudden decision to shelve the emissions trading scheme until at least 2013 and adopt Tony Abbott's "wait and see" approach was criticised by environmentalists as a betrayal and by business as a potential threat to $50bn of investment.
Despite campaigning in 2007 on a climate change platform and describing the issue as "the greatest moral challenge of our time", Mr Rudd yesterday deferred the CPRS to avoid a Coalition scare campaign on price rises and save $2.5bn in the budget.
"The opposition decided to backflip on its historical commitment to bringing in a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and there's been slow progress in the realisation of global action on climate change," Mr Rudd said.
"These two factors together inevitably mean that the implementation of a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in Australia will be delayed."
Tony Abbott accused Mr Rudd of being "scared" over the CPRS and said it was hard to take the Prime Minister seriously after he had run away from what previously had been "the most important policy for Australia at this time".
"Now, what happened to the policy that he said was so important, so necessary and so self-evidently right?" the Opposition Leader said.
"I'm quite happy for the next election to be a referendum on Mr Rudd's great big new tax on everything and he's frightened of that."
The decision to delay the CPRS follows two years of government campaigning for business certainty in tackling climate change and sparked industry warnings that more than $50bn in investment would be at risk unless a bipartisan position on climate change could be reached by the end of 2012.
Arguing for the passage of the CPRS before the Copenhagen climate change conference in December, Mr Rudd said he chose action on climate change because "Australia's fundamental economic and environmental interests lie in action.
The argument that we must not act until others do is an argument that has been used by political cowards since time immemorial," he said last November in a speech to the Lowy Institute.
"When you strip away all the political rhetoric, all the political excuses, there are two stark choices: action or inaction. The resolve of the Australian government is clear: we choose action, and we do so because Australia's fundamental economic and environmental interests lie in action. Action now. Not action delayed.
"As one of the hottest and driest continents on earth, Australia's environment and economy will be among the hardest and fastest hit by climate change if we do not act now."
The Energy Supply Association of Australia called for both parties to reach a bipartisan position by 2012 to facilitate $50bn in investment over the next five years.
Australian Industry Group chief executive Heather Ridout called on the government to press ahead with funds to help industry make the transition to a more carbon constrained economy.
The about-face came as a poll by the Lowy Institute showed most Australians wanted the government to act on climate change but were not personally prepared to pay for it. The poll found that while 72 per cent of Australians agreed that Australia should take action to reduce carbon emissions before a global agreement is reached, 33 per cent were not prepared to pay anything extra on their electricity bill and 25 per cent were only prepared to pay $10 or less extra per month.
Mr Rudd said the implementation of the CPRS would be extended until after the conclusion of the current Kyoto commitment period at the end of 2012 when other governments would be required to make clear commitments on emissions reductions.
He said the government continued to believe the CPRS was the most effective and least expensive way of acting on climate change and its unconditional 5 per cent emissions reduction target by 2020 remained.
Resources Minister Martin Ferguson in a speech last night said technology was the key to a low emissions future but coal would continue to supply the majority of the nation's energy supplies into the future.
Mr Ferguson also last night announced $40m towards the Calera mineral carbonation project, which aims to make building materials from power plant waste, if feasibility studies and a pilot plant proved successful.
Read more on The Australian.
