Windsor issues carbon challenge

Key independent MP Tony Windsor has challenged industry leaders to come up with an alternative to the government's proposed carbon tax if they do not like it.

BHP Billiton chief executive Marius Kloppers has warned that Australia's bid to put a price on carbon from next year - before other nations make a similar move - will be a 'dead weight' on high-polluting industries.

Mr Kloppers, who this week appeared with Prime Minister Julia Gillard at a Beijing function to launch scholarships, last year backed Australia leading the way on a carbon price.

But he told The Australian newspaper that 'in the absence of a global scheme, any carbon taxes you impose on an exported product basically is just dead weight'.

Mr Windsor, who is on the cabinet committee developing the carbon price and whose vote in parliament will be crucial to putting it in place, says he is 'sick' of industry leaders sending mixed signals.

Mr Windsor said he had met a delegation of BHP officials on Thursday in his Tamworth office.

'I've actually challenged BHP on this particular issue,' he told Sky News.

'(I've said to them) 'The message I'm getting is you don't want me to support a carbon tax' and most of them say 'No, that's not the message. We just want something better than the one the government's working on'.

'My challenge to the industry is ... you come up with a scheme and I'm more than happy to take that into the multi-party climate change committee.

'Put up or shut up - and come up with something that's better.'

Meanwhile, Ms Gillard - on her way to the royal wedding in London - said business leaders had not raised the issue of a carbon price with her during her east Asian visit.

'I've attended an international business forum for chief executive officers, I've attended a trade dinner, I attended a lunch with senior representatives of state-owned enterprises - huge businesses that have major investments in Australia - and in all of those discussions, no one raised with me carbon pricing in Australia,' she said.

The government is seeking to finalise its carbon price legislation in the third quarter of this year, with a fixed price to start on July 1, 2012, followed by an emissions trading scheme in three to five years.

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