Bill Shorten has challenged Tony Abbott to fight the next election on the issue of climate change, declaring: "I've got a three-word slogan for him: Bring it on."
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Describing climate change as "an economic and environmental cancer", the Labor leader has vowed to build an emissions trading scheme and not be intimidated by "ridiculous scare campaigns".
In a speech to be delivered at the party's national conference in Melbourne, Mr Shorten says only Labor can save Australia's renewable energy industry.
While Tony Abbott has been a scathing critics of wind farms, Mr Shorten will tell the conference: "I want more Aussie farmers earning more money by putting wind turbines on their land."
The speech to open the three-day conference on Friday has been billed as the most important Mr Shorten will deliver since his response to last year's unpopular budget. Supporters hope it will set a positive tone ahead of potentially divisive debates on asylum seekers, marriage equality and trade.
In a pre-emptive strike, the Liberal Party has released an attack advertisement declaring: "Bill Shorten is not a leader. He's got too much baggage from his six disastrous years with Rudd and Gillard."
In a lengthy extract released ahead of the speech, Mr Shorten returns fire, declaring one term for the Abbott government is more than enough and that "Australia can't afford another round of cuts and chaos".
The extract focuses almost exclusively on climate change, promoting the policy goal for renewable energy to generate 50 per cent of Australia's electricity by 2030.
"This is how Australia can transform our electricity system, build a new industrial landscape and deliver a clean energy future. Australians are smart enough to make this work," he says.
"This isn't a question of Australia leading the world – it's a matter of keeping up. If the world's biggest capitalist nation, and the world's biggest planned economy can agree climate change is a priority - it's time Australia did too."
Defending the commitment to build an emissions trading scheme, Mr Shorten says: "Around one billion people and more than 40 per cent of the world's economy have already embraced the opportunities of emissions trading schemes.
"We must give Australian businesses the opportunity to engage with this global market," he says.
Rather than give "big polluters fistfuls of taxpayer dollars to keep polluting", Mr Shorten says Labor will cut pollution with a market solution. "Let me say this to our opponents, in words of one syllable: An ETS is not a tax," he says.
