Two of Brendan Nelson's frontbench colleagues have come to his defence, fending off suggestions the opposition leader was rolled by his shadow cabinet on climate change policy.
Dr Nelson had wanted a fresh policy that would delay carbon emissions trading until the globe's heavy polluters, such as China and India, took action on carbon emissions.
Instead, his frontbench yesterday opted to maintain the pre-election stance to back carbon trading from 2012, two years later than the Rudd government model.
That position has been taken to a meeting of coalition MPs and senators in Canberra today.
Frontbench colleague Tony Abbott backed comments by Dr Nelson earlier this month that it would be an act of environmental and economic suicide if Australia proceeded with an ETS without a global response.
"He made a perfectly reasonable point and I support him on that," Mr Abbott told Fairfax Radio.
"Wouldn't it be a good thing if the rest of the world were on board because Australia could reduce its emissions tomorrow and it wouldn't make a difference.
His shadow cabinet colleague Christopher Pyne said he had never seen evidence Dr Nelson had changed his stance on emissions trading.
"Brendan Nelson has made no public statements whatsoever that would suggest a change in position," Mr Pyne told ABC Radio.
He said the coalition's position on climate change had always been crystal clear.
"We obviously believe in climate change, we obviously believe that an emissions trading scheme is necessary and we also believe, however, that if the big emitters - China, India, the United States - are not part of an emissions trading scheme, then that will determine (the) price of carbon and the trajectory for which we impose an emissions trading scheme," he said.
"Greg Hunt, the climate change spokesman, and (treasury spokesman) Malcolm Turnbull and Brendan Nelson, (deputy leader) Julie Bishop, myself, (health spokesman) Joe Hockey, have all been saying precisely the same thing on an emissions trading scheme over the last four weeks but there has been a bit of a media frenzy."
