Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (C) is seen as he visits RG Tanna Coal Terminal in Gladstone in February 2007. (Gary Ramage/AFP/Getty Images)

CANBERRA—Allocating almost $4 billion in funding for polluting industries is necessary to ensure job stability during the global financial crisis, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong says.

Climate change adviser Ross Garnaut has criticised parts of the federal government's policy unveiled last Monday, saying a massive lobbying exercise by vested interests had secured an overly generous deal for business.

Professor Garnaut, hired by the federal and state governments to advise on the issue of climate change, labelled the policy as "over the top" and had pandered to "unprecedented lobbying from vested interests".

But he's also criticised a financial package of almost $4 billion worth of compensation for electricity generators outlined in the plan.

The cost is likely to blow out, creating a risk to public finances, he said.

But Senator Wong said the funding was "transitional assistance" until a constraint on global carbon occurred.

"The logic of that assistance is very clearly to secure Australian jobs today whilst we are building a low-pollution economy of tomorrow," Senator Wong told ABC radio.

The assistance would be used while the government worked to build an international agreement to tackle climate change, she said.