KEVIN Rudd has adopted a conciliatory tone as negotiations on the emissions trading legislation this week shift to their decisive phase.
But Opposition spokesman Ian Macfarlane said there was still "a long way to go" and warned against further piecemeal announcements.
The Nationals stepped up their attacks, despite a big Government concession on agriculture, again putting them at odds with the farm lobby.
Dropping the hostility that characterised a recent major speech in which he lumped Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull with a prominent group of climate change sceptics, Mr Rudd said he wanted a deal.
"I want to get the carbon pollution reduction scheme through. I've said this consistently over a long period of time," he told reporters in Singapore, confirming the Government was prepared to give the Opposition "quite a lot" on agriculture, saying this showed the Government was serious about securing its legislation.
The Government will permanently exclude agricultural emissions and give farmers access to credits for good farming practices such as tree planting.
Senate Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce said the Senate Nationals would still vote against the legislation.
Nationals leader Warren Truss said the changes offered some potential relief but left farmers with major extra costs.
David Crombie, the president of the National Farmers Federation, said it was encouraged by the agricultural announcement.
The president of the Victorian Farmers Federation, Andrew Broad, said the decision would put Australia more in line with other nations.
"The Europeans and the US have both excluded direct emissions [from agriculture] from the scheme and are allowing offsets," he said.
Mr Macfarlane, who will have further talks with Climate Change Minister Penny Wong today, welcomed the concession but said piecemeal announcements could make harder his task of getting a deal through the Coalition party room, because a package needed to be seen as a whole.
Negotiations are expected to continue most of the week.
Opposition Senate leader Nick Minchin said agriculture was an easy concession for the Government because it had not previously agreed to include it.
Mr Rudd said that giving a concession to the Coalition was designed to increase the chances of a deal on the scheme.
"The reason we've done what we've done on agriculture is to underline what we are on about here, which is good-faith negotiations," he said.
Asked whether he was now confident of securing a deal when Parliament resumes today, Mr Rudd replied: "Don't know - we still don't have the full reply from those opposite."
Mr Rudd would like to have the scheme in place before he attends the Copenhagen summit next month.
Parliament today begins a fortnight session that will be dominated by emissions legislation.
With a difficult and divided party room, Mr Turnbull said he had not made any commitment as to whether the party would support the outcome of the negotiations because the result was not yet known.
Greens leader Bob Brown said the Government and Opposition were on the verge of a "polluters' pact".
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