Australia’s opposition Labor party has brought back former Climate Change Minister Greg Combet to help design an emissions trading scheme that the party plans to bring to the election late next year, the Guardian reported Wednesday.

Combet was a minister in Julia Gillard’s cabinet and oversaw the introduction of Australia’s carbon pricing mechanism, which was dismantled last year by Tony Abbott’s Liberal government.

The deal to tie Australia’s emissions market to the EU ETS was also negotiated under Combet’s watch. He also travelled to China, Japan and South Korea, to discuss potential future market links.

Combet left politics when Gillard stepped down in 2013, but has now been hired by Labor part time to help develop the party’s new climate change policy.

Labor promised in March last year that it would bring a new ETS to the next election, but has yet to begin the design process.

Current Environment Minister Greg Hunt was not impressed, however.

“Who better to bring back Labor’s painful and ineffective carbon tax than the person who designed it in the first place? The return of Greg Combet shows Labor has no ideas, no plans and no direction for Australia,” he said in a statement.

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