Isra-Mart srl : Coalition climate policy 'easily dumped'

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The Government has seized on comments from former Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull that the Coalition's climate policy could be very expensive for taxpayers and that one benefit was it could be ''easily terminated''.

Mr Turnbull - who lost the leadership of his party over his support for putting a price on pollution - told Lateline last night that he did not want to comment on the Coalition's policy, but that a virtue of it, from Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's view, was that it could be stopped easily.

''If in fact climate change is proved to be not real, which some people obviously believe - I don't. If you believe climate change is going to be proved to be unreal, then a scheme like that can be brought to an end,'' he said.

''Or if you believe that there is not going to be any global action and that the rest of the world will just say, 'It's all too hard and we'll just let the planet get hotter and hotter', and, you know, heaven help our future generations - if you take that rather grim, fatalistic view of the future and you want to abandon all activity, a scheme like that is easier to stop.''

He said a direct action policy, where industry was able to freely pollute and government spent ''more and more taxpayers; money to offset it'', would ''become a very expensive charge on the budget in the years ahead''.

Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said Mr Turnbull's comments made it clear that the Opposition's policy was ''a policy you have when you don’t want to take action on climate change''.

''Mr Turnbull also makes absolutely clear that taxpayers will have to foot the bill for Mr Abbott’s do nothing policy. This point was reinforced yesterday by [Opposition climate spokesman] Greg Hunt who revealed that the Coalition’s policy is like a carbon price but without the assistance the Government will offer under its proposed carbon price,'' he said.

Mr Hunt has rejected that interpretation.

''As I have repeatedly said, the Coalition’s direct action climate plan would offer a financial incentive to reduce carbon emissions. It would not levy a tax on carbon emissions,'' he said.