AUSTRALIAN VOTERS NEED TO KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT ETS

THE Federal Opposition may have melted into a puddle of confusion over climate change policy last week - but the Government cannot afford to sit back and gloat.

The wider community is totally confused by the Rudd Government's proposal to introduce an Emissions Trading Scheme in Australia.

The vast majority of respondents - 80 per cent - to our exclusive Galaxy poll do not believe they have been given enough information about the proposed ETS.That is an enormous number.

This is a policy that will affect wealth distribution in this country for generations.

Of those surveyed, 60 per cent also said Australia should not be rushing into an ETS in this country before the international climate- change summit in Copenhagen next week. Even half of Labor voters feel this way.

That too is an enormous number and one that can't be ignored by Labor. The poll, too, will give comfort to rebel Liberals such as Tony Abbott and Nick Minchin. But it is also the worst possible news for Malcolm Turnbull, who is officially a dead man walking. His long-held ambition of being prime minister is over.

The findings reflect a genuine feeling in the community that the Government is rushing the ETS through without explaining it properly.

This is exactly what Minchin and the hardliners have been arguing. It is important to note that it does not mean every Australian who wants to hold off rubber-stamping an ETS until after Copenhagen is a climate-change sceptic.

You can believe in climate change but want to wait and see what the world does at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive.

Mr Rudd gave the Parliament only one week to debate one of the biggest changes to the economy since the introduction of the GST - and all, it would appear, because he wants a trophy to take to Copenhagen.

However, people want to know exactly how the Government is going to spend the estimated $114bn it will collect from the carbon permits

There has been no chance to debate these issues properly, let alone whether the ETS will actually have any impact on the environment.

In the meantime, the media has been consumed by the ructions in the Liberal Party.

One reason for the rush is a dirty little secret the Government would prefer you did not latch on to: an ETS may be good for the environment ... but that is only because it will be bad for your hip pocket. The average household will be about $1100 a year worse off because of the flow-on of higher energy prices - maybe more.

And the pain is intentional. The Government wants to make you change the way you live. The whole point of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, as the Government now calls it, is to wean Australians off the carbon-based energy we enjoy here in abundance by making it more expensive.

But the Government doesn't want you to think about that too much. It prefers to spin the upside, such as the compensation it will give low-income families to offset the higher prices. Some households will actually be better off, it claims. All this is very hard to judge, however, given how little useful detail has been released in regards to how the money will be spent.

Secrecy also surrounds the size of the Australian delegation heading to Copenhagen.

It looks like being one of our biggest-ever representations at an international conference and would have a substantial carbon footprint of its own. Justified it may be, but taxpayers have a right to know how much the bill will be.

When The Sunday Telegraph tried to find out, the Government tried to shut us down without explanation. It promised the information then withdrew the promise, which can only mean one thing: it is worried about your reaction.

As for the Liberals, under Mr Turnbull they have ceded ground to the Government on this issue. Right or wrong, his attempt to modernise the party's environmental policies has created a backlash from the party faithful that now looks likely to cost him his job.

If he'd moved more cautiously and brought others along with him he might have won the day. But that is not his style, nor his personality.