Carbon pricing has been front and centre in the political debate in Australia, particularly since the August 2010 election, but also in the lead-up to Kevin Rudd becoming Prime Minister, right through until he was deposed. At that stage it had disappeared from the agenda after talks failed at the Copenhagen summit after which then Prime Minister Rudd swiftly dumped his governments’ plans for an emissions trading scheme. We then had nothing in the form of emissions trading or carbon pricing when Julia Gillard became Prime Minister, until after the election where Ms Gillard had promised there would not be a carbon tax under her government.It was then, that under negotiations for a minority government, the PM, in seeking support to remain Prime Minister agreed to put forward plans for a price on carbon emissions.

From that moment on the problems started for the Gillard Government. First it was a problem of credibility, our nation’s leader had lied and her administration has never recovered from that. Then the negotiations, particularly with the Australian Greens, who wanted a lot more from the new carbon price than the ETS Kevin Rudd proposed, proved a delicate process where there was clearly a lot more giving in then taking concessions from the Greens.

Then it was time for the hard selling of the policy to the public, already let down by the lie and finding it extra hard to believe that the compensation would be enough to allay the extra cost burden under a carbon pricing regime. In recent weeks it has become clear that a significant number of people are probably less concerned about the extra costs of the carbon tax and the government would be hoping that the numbers continue to head in the right direction.

Since the fixed price carbon reduction scheme began on July the 1st though, elements of it have either been dropped or temporarily sat aside. First, just last week, in linking our carbon price with the European Union from 2015, the ALP agreed to drop the floor price. This would have meant that the cost of carbon credits did not drop below $15 dollars per tonne.

Today there was another backdown. The Labor Government gave up on talks to secure the shutdown of five of the biggest coal-fired power stations. The sticking point being that the compensation put on the table by the government was not enough. Now, this could be returned to at a later date, but the outcome of future talks would probably be more of the same without more latitude being given.

If the scheme hadn’t already been thrown into confusion over revenue with the removal of the floor price, now any thoughts of the mid to long-term reduction of domestic emissions appear dashed- not that domestic emissions would have been reduced under early years of the policy anyway.

So now, not only is future revenue with the emissions trading scheme beginning in three years time in doubt, now even the emissions reduction targets are in jeopardy if talks cannot be resumed and a mutually agreeable outcome reached.

What’s next on the rollercoaster that is carbon pricing? The story won’t end here.