Australian PM stalked by elephant

Amid the hurly-burly of the election campaign, Prime Minister Julia Gillard has been stalked by an unusual protester: an elephant.

Its accompanying sign reads: "The elephant is in the room: reduce (carbon) pollution."

Gillard may have hoped the elephant-sized problem of climate change would fade from the campaign, but it seems to have got bigger.

Labour needed a new climate policy after the Rudd government shelved its emissions trading scheme in April.

The government is gambling on a cautious plan that won't reduce greenhouse gas emissions or scare voters with the prospect of rising electricity prices.

It aims to neuter a coalition scare campaign, especially in suburban and regional marginal seats.

But the centrepiece of Labour's policy - a so-called citizens' assembly to advise the government on climate science and solutions to climate change - was roundly condemned.

The risk is that the policy could sway some voters to support the Australian Greens, pushing Labour's primary vote to a level too low for comfort.

The coalition is on safer ground with its softly-softly climate policy, mainly because it never promised drastic action to tackle what former prime minister Kevin Rudd once called "the great moral challenge of our time".

Both major parties have promised to cut emissions by 5 to 25 per cent by 2020 but, with a lack of progress internationally sapping momentum at home, neither party has a credible plan to meet the target.

Labour may introduce a carbon price some time after 2013, two elections away, and in the interim the 150-strong citizens' assembly would consider the matter.

Labour plans a $400 million scheme - labelled cash for clunkers - that would pay car owners $2000 to trade in their old vehicles.

There is also money to green up the electricity grid, with new laws likely to prevent construction of some dirtier coal-fired power stations.

Under a coalition government there would be no carbon price but instead a $3.2 billion fund for reducing emissions, largely from soil carbon and solar panels.

The coalition intends cutting the funding for controversial technology to clean up coal and international climate aid.

The Greens want a carbon price and to cut emissions by at least 25 per cent by 2020.

The Climate Institute in its analysis of the policies, says under Labour emissions would rise by 19 per cent by 2020.

Under the coalition emissions would increase 9 per cent.

Gillard repeatedly has said the election is about "moving forwards", but on climate change both parties seem to have moved in another direction.

During the 2007 election campaign both Labour and the coalition promised to establish emissions trading by 2012.

- AAP