Industry may lose if ETS changed: Combet

Business could lose out if the emissions trading scheme (ETS) is rewritten, the
federal government has warned.
The ETS is facing defeat in the Senate after the coalition vowed not to vote for it
this year, saying it wants to wait until after UN climate talks in Copenhagen in
December.
The federal government is hoping the business community will pressure the coalition
to change its mind and pass the scheme.
Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change Greg Combet on Wednesday said business
could end up with less assistance if the scheme was knocked back.
"If we have to go back to the drawing board, everyone involved will have to run the
gauntlet of the political process," he told a Canberra minerals industry conference.
He urged business to consider the ramifications.
"This is something that all industries receiving assistance should think very
carefully about when they consider their approach to proposals to delay the scheme."
Businesses will get up to 95 per cent of their permits for free - worth billions of
dollars - under the government's ETS.
Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner also went in to bat for the ETS, saying Australia
would be seen as "recalcitrant" if it did not bed down a climate scheme before the
Copenhagen talks.
"We have to demonstrate our bona fides, given we are amongst the highest per capita
polluters in the world," Mr Tanner said.
"If we are unable to have a clear position in advance of the Copenhagen conference
... we will be seen as a recalcitrant nation trying to cling on to the privileges
that we enjoy at the expense of others."
Meanwhile, there is confusion over what the coalition's policy is on emissions trading.
On Tuesday, Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull announced that the coalition's new
policy was to wait until next year before deciding on emissions trading.
The previous policy was to start a scheme in 2012.
Liberal backbencher Stuart Robert said it was still coalition policy to have a
scheme up and running by 2012.
The party's spokesman on emissions trading, Andrew Robb, said an emissions trading
scheme should be introduced "when we get it right".
But Nationals senator Ron Boswell said his aim was to defeat the ETS legislation.
Liberal MP Wilson Tuckey said most coalition politicians believed that an ETS would
not work.
Former Labor leader Kim Beazley said the government could only get its ETS through
parliament after a double dissolution election.
If the Senate knocks back the ETS laws twice, the government can seek a double
dissolution election.