On Monday night's episode of Q&A, the Minister for Climate Change Senator Penny Wong criticised Greens' Senator Christine Milne for not passing Labor's emissions trading scheme. There were few surprises in her argument - the scheme may not be perfect but at least "something is better than nothing". She went on to illustrate her point by saying

It's like a social welfare advocacy group who say, “We want the aged pension but what you’re giving us is not enough so we’re going to vote it down.” That’s really the analogy.

Senator Wong's analogy is only half right. It's actually like a social welfare advocacy group saying "We want the aged pension but your proposal doesn't provide enough income for people to live and we won't be able to change that for decades to come so we're going to vote it down."

Sounds like a reasonable position to me, Senator.

Others have pointed out the many flaws in Labor's ETS. It is massively generous to polluters, sets targets too weak to drive a real change to renewable energy, and allows industry to sidestep their obligations by purchasing credits overseas. Analysis of the policy also indicates that the carbon credits given to polluters would be treated as property rights under the law - meaning that any future attempt to enact more progressive targets would require billions more in compensation. 

That's really the point of this sorry debate. If we were able to improve the current scheme over the next few years, by improving targets so that we begin to drive down emissions, there might be an argument for passing it. But we can't. Taxpayers would essentially be held hostage by polluters, unless we coughed up a ransom we just can't afford. We'll be stuck with this lemon for decades to come. 

As for the glib "something is better than nothing argument", it's just another false dichotomy that makes a good soundbite. It's not really a choice between the government's ETS or nothing. The Greens have proposed an interim price on Carbon for the next two years, or at least until a decent ETS that actually reduces carbon emissions is up and running.

The good news is that according to the Oz there might be some support from within the ALP:

"Concerns are also growing in the government, with worried Labor MPs planning to ask Mr Rudd to embrace a carbon tax as Labor's climate change policy, to fill the vacuum left by his contentious shelving of the emissions trading scheme. After being bombarded by outraged younger voters in their electorates, five Labor MPs have told The Australian the government's current position on climate change is untenable and unsellable to the electorate."

We can only hope.