The missing link in Australia’s climate change debate – a strong and unified business voice in support of a carbon price – may have finally been found.

The appointment of Lend Lease Australia CEO Rod Leaver as chairman of the National Business Leaders Forum on Sustainable Development could be the game changer that the current policy debate needs.

Leaver is determined to revitalise the NBLF committee groups and introduce what he describes as some “heavy hitters” – CEOs from Australia’s leading industrial groups – to call on the government, whichever political flavour it might turn out to be, to act soon on climate change.

Leaver told Climate Spectator in an interview on Wednesday that advocating a carbon price would be his first and biggest priority. “We need to take a pragmatic approach and develop a visionary leadership group that can come up with solutions,” he said. “This forum can set the agenda for how a carbon pricing mechanism may work, and come up with a fair and equitable approach which achieves a leadership position for Australia.”

The number of companies and business leaders calling for a carbon price in Australia has intensified recently, with most being deeply frustrated that they had to put investment decisions on hold because of constant political delays on introducing a carbon price.

Industry associations, including those representing heavy emitters, have called for clarity on the issue in an effort to unlock the tens of billions of dollars in stalled investments, but their arguments have been cannibalised by vested interests, and there has never been a broad coalition that was able to put pressure on Canberra to act, apart from those which didn’t want any action at all.

There have been numerous attempts at bringing business leaders together to speak with one voice – one as late as last week, when various environmental groups and climate change lobbyists tried to organise a common statement with business leaders to time with the visit to Australia and the national capital of Nicholas Stern, the eminent economist who was the lead author of the Stern Report that underlined the economic case for action on climate change.

In the end, it was impossible to get the sign-off from so many businesses in such a short period, so it was put on hold for a few weeks. Only a separate initiative that united environmental NGOs, unions, church groups, and charities managed to get their act together to issue a joint statement, ironically on the very day that the Greens struck a deal with the ALP and Prime Minister Julia Gillard committed to create a multi-party climate change committee that would look, specifically, at a carbon price.

“Most business people have known for some time what the right solution is, but they are not in the habit of asking for more regulation,” says Nathan Fabian, the head of the Investor Group on Climate Change, a grouping of institutions that account for more than half of the funds under management in Australia.

“It’s a big step for a lot of companies to bite the bullet and call for action. But if you believe in markets, and you want an efficient solution to the climate change problem, you have to stand up for a carbon price and a market mechanism to deliverer it.”

Getting them to do that, however, has been another matter. "A lot of businesses are nervous about standing up," says NBLF convenor Molly Harriss Olson, who ran Bill Clinton’s White House Office on Sustainable Development. She expects Leaver’s appointment, and the emergence of a high profile committee, will change those dynamics.

Leaver says his committee will be apolitical. “We are not quite sure which government it will be, but it doesn’t matter which party is in power, it will require industry and the government to work together. We want the government to see this as the body that they need to talk to.”

Leaver, who heads the country’s largest property and construction group, said the property industry was well positioned to take the lead in a push to the so-called green economy, because it was the industry that could most quickly and efficiently and cost effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“Australia is the leader in green building technology, so there is no reason why we can’t drive the agenda for how that may operate throughout the world. The time to act is now, we should be leading in this area.”

The NBLF expects to announce new members of its committee within the next week or so. Leaver wants these to be at CEO level, and expects to draw them from among the top 20 and top 50 companies on the ASX.

He wouldn’t reveal names at this stage, but they are expected to include at least some of the original members of the Business Roundtable on Climate Change, BP Australia, and Visy Industries, as well as the head of Energy Australia who, with a group of other companies, NGOs, think tanks, legal firms and others, signed a “call for comprehensive action on climate change” after the NBLFs national conference in May.

At that conference, the government sent environment minister Peter Garrett along to address the meeting. Leaver must anticipate that, with a bevy of Top 20 CEOs in tow, the NBLF might now be able to move higher up the political food chain.