"Claytons Trading Scheme"

No target.
No price for carbon.
Wait 5 years to start.

The Report of the Prime Minister's Task Force on Emissions Trading is not a useful contribution to the war on global warming. Rather it reflects the wishes of the fossil fuel industries (who dominate the Task Force) and the climate sceptics in Cabinet (who dominate the Government's response on this issue). It also reveals the Government's strategy: Put it off and it might go away.

(We just had the hottest May in history.)

So much for Stern's, NASA's and the IPCC's 10 year window to take serious action. The Task Force wants us to spend 5 years 'getting the policy setting right'.

The PM said the wrong policy on carbon trading 'could do great damage to Australia' and he's right. This is the wrong policy and it will do great damage to Australia. But by 'Australia' the PM means the economy. His macro doesn't extend to the environment which hosts the economy. This 'hosting' relationship he does not understand.

With the exception of Malcolm Turnbull, the present leadership of the nation is unable to comprehend the nature of the challenge they face. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberland thought he had the measure of Hitler when he returned to England in 1938 waving a piece of paper and saying "Peace in our time."

God help us. This Report won't.