The Coalition's irresponsible scare campaign on a carbon price has reached new lows.

There are revelations this morning that Tony Abbott has distributed a cheat sheet on the carbon pricing legislation to his federal MPs which is full of distortions and untruths.

It has also emerged that the NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell has disgracefully misled the NSW public about the impact of a carbon price on public transport fares in the State.

These developments show that far from wanting a genuine debate over the Gillard Government's clean energy legislation, the Coalition is intent on misleading the public.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports this morning that the Coalition has distributed 34 pages of talking points to its federal MPs which include several assertions that are untrue or misleading.

Here are just a few examples of the untruths sprinkled thoughout these talking points.

Claim: Australian taxpayers will be spending an estimated $3.5 billion in 2020 to buy up foreign carbon credits.

Fact: When the carbon price mechanism moves to an emissions trading scheme, the Government will sell a fixed number of carbon permits each year to polluters covered by the scheme. Polluters who do not buy enough Australian permits to meet their obligations will then have to either reduce their pollution or buy international permits (up to 50 per cent of their liability). It will be the polluters who buy the international permits to meet their carbon price mechanism obligations, not the government.

Claim: The carbon price will lead to job losses.

Fact: Treasury modelling shows employment continues to grow under a carbon price, with 1.6 million extra jobs created by 2020 with or without a carbon price.

Claim: The Government's modelling which is used to estimate how much the carbon tax will cost families, pensioners and businesses uses a carbon price of $20 a tonne not $23 a tonne."

Fact: Treasury's modelling of the impact of the carbon price on the cost of living used a carbon price of $23 a tonne. The Government's household assistance package is based on the results of this modelling. It was Treasury's separate macro-economic modelling that used a scenario with a carbon price of $20 a tonne.

At the same time as the federal Coalition's misleading and deceptive conduct has been exposed, there are also reports this morning showing the Liberal NSW Premier, Barry O'Farrell, blatantly exaggerated the impact of a carbon price on public transport.

Mr O'Farrell claimed publicly in July that the carbon price would increase public transport fares in Sydney by 3.6 per cent and warned that some commuters faced extra costs of $150 a year.

But documents released in the NSW Parliament yesterday show the NSW Treasury advised the State Government in August that the Federal Government's carbon price would increase public transport fares by just 0.49 per cent.

The documents also show that on July 15 the State Department of Transport sent a memo to the O'Farrell Government which said: "The impact of the carbon tax is not expected to have any measurable effect on people's choices regarding public transport or private car use."

Yet on the very same day, Mr O'Farrell issued a press release saying: "I fear many Sydney commuters will turn away from public transport and get back into their cars because the carbon price will push up fares."

The documents show disgraceful efforts by the Premier's political advisers to cover up the results of the Transport Department's advice through selective quoting and "sexing it up-style" reworking of the material.

This kind of blatant disregard for the truth and deliberate deception of the public by Tony Abbott and Barry O'Farrell has no place in Australian politics.

Media contact: Mark Davis 0400 295 560; Gia Hayne 0412 060 406