AUSTRALIA'S response to climate change is haphazard and lacks direction, writes LESLIE WHITE

Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott must have handed their climate scripts to the wrong Victorian leaders.

Gillard wants a price on carbon ... eventually. (She used to say, "delayers are deniers", but now denies she's a delayer.)

So after she's pretended to listen to a bunch of non-experts not clever enough to avoid climate jury duty, she'll go for an emissions trading scheme.

Abbott claims to want "Direct Action". His plan is to provide money to polluters as an incentive to reduce emissions.

And you'd expect Victorian Liberal leader Ted Ballieu to follow Abbott's lead and Premier John Brumby to follow Gillard's.

However, Brumby wants $1 billion to compensate shareholders for a staged closure of Hazelwood power station.

It's direct; it's action. Sounds like Tony Abbott's Direct Action.

Ballieu reckons we need a trading scheme ... for emissions. Sounds like Julia Gillard's ETS.

Brumby needs the Federal Government to fund the Hazelwood buy-back.

Gillard says she'll consider it, but it's the Coalition that has money set aside via its direct action plan (though there are obstacles - Abbott prefers zero job losses).

And the Victorian Coalition wouldn't need its own ETS if Gillard would just install hers.

Meanwhile, Gillard offers $2000 to upgrade from a pre-1995 vehicle to a brand new Prius, for example - a cost of about $30,000.

To fund this stunt, she pulls $370 million from ... solar energy research. Naturally.

And hybrid cars only illustrate how to half-achieve something anyway.

The Coalition wants to pull the same money from solar energy for "debt reduction", though economists say our debt level is fine. So this is also a stunt.

Carbon experts say Gillard's new plan for farmers to sell carbon permits internationally will be of "little value" to landholders and won't reduce carbon pollution from coal - which in Victoria accounts for about 70 per cent of emissions.

Neither side is "Moving forward" or taking "Real action".

Brumby's climate change plan will hugely increase the energy Victoria gets from wind.

But wind is subsidised, inefficient, leaves local councils and residents powerless to refuse the farms (unless the Victorian Coalition changes the law) and according to peer-reviewed scientific papers, makes people sick.

You never hear anyone complaining the solar panel down the road makes a throbbing noise.

Geothermal, solar, solar thermal and tidal should be the focus of renewable investment.

Brumby offers the chance to offset your car's emissions, mostly via trees - but we don't need another managed investment scheme-style lesson in how to reduce regional employment by planting a monoculture.

Perhaps we could reduce the emissions.

Australia needs a genuine climate vision, which considers food security, the economy and water availability, and is complemented by State Government policies. Not stunts.

  • Leslie White is The Weekly Times national affairs writer