Rifts appear in ALP over carbon tax stance A Labor backbencher says his party should allow the incoming government to scrap the carbon tax. A LABOR backbencher has broken ranks to say the party should not oppose Abbott government plans to scrap the carbon tax, highlighting rifts in the ALP over climate policy. Labor MP Nick Champion has contradicted colleagues who have said they will block the coalition's carbon tax plans, saying Labor should instead expose the coalition's direct action policy as a "disaster." "If the majority of people vote for bad policy, then they simply need to see that experiment fulfilled," he told ABC radio on Wednesday. It's not our job to save the Liberal Party from bad policy and it's not our job to save the Australian people from bad policy if that's what they choose and vote for in an election. Scrapping the carbon tax and moving to the direct action plan would push electricity prices up, raise Australia's emissions and waste billions of dollars, Mr Champion said. "In effect, I think the Liberal Party want to hang themselves," he added. Mr Champion's Labor colleague Richard Marles said questions of mandate had to be considered by the party. "We do need to acknowledge the fact that Tony Abbott won the election, and we lost," the Victorian MP told Sky News. On the one hand putting a price on carbon has been good policy. By contrast the direct action plan is a silly policy. There is not an expert outside the Liberal Party who thinks it is anything other than a lemon. But Labor MP Michelle Rowland asked why she would expose voters to the "bad" direct action policy, which includes using soil and trees to soak up emissions. Describing direct action as an "absolute figleaf," Ms Rowland said: "They can't even find one person, one person, to explain what it is, other than planting trees and magic soil. "I'm not voting for a policy about planting trees and magic soil," she said. I believe in markets ... and this is a market-based mechanism that we have put in place. Tony Maher from the CFMEU also joined the debate, hitting out at Mr Champion and his "cheap kindergarten politics" and saying "he's walked into it like an amateur." "The people who voted for Labor want Labor to stand for something, and if they don't stand for something they will pay a further price, they'll lose more votes," the general president of the union's mining and energy division told ABC radio. Senior Liberal Eric Abetz said Labor would be "foolhardy" to stand in the way of such an "emblematic" policy. "Let's hope that Nick Champion's commonsense approach on this occasion gets some traction within the caucus," Senator Abetz told ABC radio. I simply believe it is foolhardy for a political party, especially such as the ALP, to consider that there are no lessons to be learnt on the policy front after an election defeat.