Trade Minister Simon Crean said "all options" were open as the government bids to pass the bills, aimed at cutting carbon pollution by up to 25 percent over the next decade, before global climate change talks next month.

"We keep all options open in this, this has been rejected once, we want it passed the second time," Crean told Sky News.

"We are deadly serious in getting this legislation through. Someone has to show the lead, not the deferral in this exercise."

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has consistently said he has no intention of using the emissions bills, now before the Senate again, to call a "double-dissolution" election allowed when legislation is defeated twice.

Opposition Senator Nick Minchin called on the Senate to again reject the laws, saying it was "literally crazy" to commit to a carbon trading scheme before targets are debated by world leaders next month at Copenhagen.

Rudd, who won office in 2007 on a pro-green platform, has described climate change as "the greatest moral challenge of our generation" for Australia, which is the grip of the worst drought in a century.

His government does not have a majority in the Senate, or upper house, where independents hold the balance of power and which first rejected the scheme in August.

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.