The deal is only good for a fortnight as the Government tries to ram through its legislation before the United Nation’s conference on climate change at Copenhagen in December. Otherwise “all bets are off,” a Government spokesperson has told The Narromine News and Trangie Advocate.

If the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme does not get up in the current sitting of parliament any future Labor ETS may be harsher on rural Australia and in particular farmers, said the industry’s peak body.

With this in mind the NSW Farmers’ Association has supported the agriculture exemption which it had been lobbying hard for.

“We are quite pleased from what the minister is saying,” association president Charles Armstrong said.

“There is so much public support to implement (the CPRS) irrespective of its impact. If we fight to oppose it we wouldn’t achieve anything in the end.

“We had to ensure the best deal for agriculture.”

However, the NSWFA will be watching developments closely particularly the “devil in the detail” regarding carbon offsets that the Kyoto Protocol does not recognise for farmers.

Mr Armstrong said the main issue was to reduce the cost which would burden farmers under the scheme “because that will destroy agriculture.”

Mr Armstrong, a Nyngan farmer, has been talking to both the Nationals who he said understood their position and the Government.

“It’s been interesting to educate them on the impact they were likely to introduce,” he said.

The NSWFA’s cautious support for an ETS is at odds with their political bedfellows, the Nationals, some of who have said they wouldn’t support an ETS regardless of the amendments they are currently negotiating with the Government.

Any showdown on the CPRS will occur in the senate where the Government is calling on the Opposition to support the bill.

While Opposition leader Malcolm Turnball supports an ETS, in one form or another and an ETS was the Coalition’s policy at the last election, there is currently large divisions within the two parties.