AUS DITCHES CARBON PRICE

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has delayed introducing a price for carbon pollution - angering environmentalists, scientists and business ahead of her bid to secure re-election.

The delay, until 2012 at least, will strain the ruling Labor Party's ties with the Greens Party which are likely to have the balance of power in the upper house Senate afer the 21 August election.

The government and conservative opposition have both promised to cut emissions by five percent by 2020, but the opposition is opposed to carbon trading, which it calls a great big new tax.

Big business and mining companies also oppose carbon trading, saying it would increase their costs and force projects offshore.

Gillard said a trading scheme was essential to reduce carbon emissions, but no decision would be made until a new Citizen's Assembly canvassed community views for the next 12 months.

"Australians have real concerns about making changes that are this big and they need more information," she said. "They are concerned about the impact on jobs and the impact on the prices of goods and services that they rely on, especially electricity."

Economics professor Warwick McKibbin, a board member of the Reserve Bank of Australia, said Labor's climate policy was "extremely disappointing" and delayed action purely for "political advantage."