Every so often, public figures say what they really think. Bernie Fraser, the former Reserve Bank governor and the chairman of the independent Climate Change Authority, summarised Australia's climate change debate in terms everyone could understand this week. The ''bad guys'' are winning.

There are, of course, sceptics in the media who ferociously attack and distort mainstream science. What is more serious, Fraser argues, are the ''people in positions of influence in industry associations or companies or in the government and the opposition who in some cases say they believe the science but then don't act as if they do''.

Climate Change Authority chairman Bernie Fraser says climate scientists are losing the battle for policy change against people in positions of influence that do say climate change exisits but fail to act as though they do believe it. Credit:Josh Robenstone

The good guys, he told Guardian Australia, are the mainstream climate scientists, and they're losing because ''those who speak loudest and most frequently, regardless of the merits of the argument, seem to be winning the day''. The public is tired of it all and is switching off.

It is hard to disagree with Fraser, who heads an authority set up to provide independent advice to the government on Australia's carbon reduction goals. (Its advice has been inconvenient, and the government plans to abolish it in July.) If asked, the government says it accepts climate change science, but everything it has done to date suggests otherwise.