On 27 April 2010, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced the deferral of his government’s flagship climate-change policy, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS), after it had twice failed to gain support in the Australian Senate. The decision, along with the mismanagement of a home insulation scheme and a proposed mining tax led to the curtailment of Rudd’s premiership and confirmed climate change as one of the most toxic issues in Australian politics. This paper examines the reasons for this policy failure drawing on 53 expert interviews with Australian politicians, civil servants, business leaders and independent commentators. It is argued that the CPRS’ demise was caused principally by a series of shortcomings in political strategy by the government, rather than deficits in policy design or even per se the increasingly partisan nature of Australian climate politics. A policy network and political strategies framework is used to explore the political obstacles to the CPRS and how the development of alternative strategies – and more vigorous use of ones employed – may assist in bridging partisan positions taken by the major political parties and business groups on climate change, and in rekindling public appetite for a carbon price in Australia. From this, general conclusions are drawn about the contribution of policy-network and political-strategy analysis to deciphering – and hastening the progress of – national climate politics and policy.
