ETS shelved "until at least 2013"

Interrupting work on my other current climate project to bring you the news that the Rudd government has put the “greatest moral challenge since the dawn of time” firmly on the back burner. As the ABC reports:

It was once a centrepiece of the Federal Government’s election strategy, but now the emissions trading scheme (ETS) has been relegated to the shelf until at least 2013.

Delaying the scheme means the Government could save $2.5 billion from its budget over the next three years, because it would not be paying compensation to households and industries.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd recently said climate change remained a fundamental economic, environmental and moral challenge, whether it was popular or not.

But Government sources say it was decided last week to remove the scheme from next month’s budget, bowing to the political reality that the Senate is unlikely to pass the ETS any time soon.

The Upper House has already blocked the ETS legislation twice.

The bills are before the Parliament again but the Senate has delayed the debate while it examines the deal that Mr Rudd struck with former Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull.

The bottom line is that neither the Opposition, now led by Tony Abbott, nor the Greens like the amended legislation, so it remains in limbo. (source)

And the Sydney Morning Herald readers will all be choking on their skinny lattes:

The decision means the government is likely to take its ETS legislation off the table until after an election, expected later this year.

It also means Labor will not use its latest legislation as a double-dissolution trigger, nor its original bills twice rejected by the upper house last year.

The Senate was expected to vote on the legislation when parliament resumes sitting in May.

“The prime minister clearly has no commitment to climate change,” Mr Hunt said, adding the ETS was a tool to get Mr Rudd through an election.

“And he’s dropped it the moment it’s become inconvenient.” (source)

Just goes to show that Rudd will do whatever it takes to get re-elected in November, even as much as scrapping his centrepiece policy.

At least the Australian taxpayers have dodged the bullet for the time being. But it also means that the Opposition will not have the ETS stick to beat the government with, which will make winning this year’s election even harder.