It's worth stating that under John Howard if he had won in 2007 there would have been an Emissions Trading Scheme now. It was an election policy.
It is also worth stating that Howard would have commited nothing until the rest of the world moved on it. If Howard was still in now both the trading scheme and water policy would have been scraped! Howard was a tough enough pragmatist to admit that to the voters.
The simple truth of the matter is this...The drought broke ten months too early and saved us from Rudd.